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County cautious about ordering evacuations
By JOE NEWMAN © St. Petersburg Times, published September 25, 1998 They admittedly were walking a thin line between wanting to be as prudent as possible without forcing people from their homes too early. They finally agreed to delay the beginning of evacuations until 6 a.m. today, showing the faith they have in modern weather forecasts. With the edge of the storm not expected to affect the county until this evening, several members of the county's Disaster Advisory Committee argued that the evacuation order could wait until this morning. "Then you have the whole daylight hours to transport people," School District police Chief Joseph Feraca said. Feraca, an Elena veteran, has a critical role in the evacuation plan because most of the "special needs" shelters are at schools and because he also controls the buses needed to transport residents to those shelters. County Emergency Management Director David Bilodeau had proposed that the mandatory evacuation begin at 6 p.m. Thursday. He remembered the last-minute evacuation of Elena, when the County Commission gave the order at 11 p.m. the Friday before Labor Day. What worried Bilodeau most about delaying the evacuation until this morning was that the forecast could change dramatically overnight. The storm could increase in strength and speed or change its path and head more toward Pinellas County, he said. "How much can change and go wrong?" Bilodeau said. "I'm not arguing with the chief because he's probably going to be correct (but) Old Mother Nature rarely cooperates." More than 500,000 people were ordered to evacuate during Elena, with many of them packing into the county's shelters. The problem is that Elena stalled off the coast and left thousands of residents stranded in the shelters for 21/2 days. That's not a scenario that emergency officials wanted to repeat this time. Feraca said that if residents entered shelters Thursday night, they would wake up, see nice weather and want to leave. Another problem is that most of those residents would be older and not as comfortable spending two nights in the shelter. "The thing I'm really worried about is these folks being on the hardwood floor for that long period of time," he said. "If we were on a hurricane watch or warning at this time, it would be a moot point. But we're not." Jim Barker, St. Petersburg's Civil Preparedness coordinator, is another Elena veteran who argued to delay the evacuation until this morning. During Elena, it seemed like there was too much lead time, Barker said. Of course, Elena didn't cooperate, either. "It stalled. It went cruising past us. It stalled; nobody knew where it was going," Barker said. "Then it wobbled in our direction. "We could almost be in the same situation. This is conjuring up memories of Elena and the uncertainty. It just points out these storms are extremely unpredictable." Thursday's debate was affected, in part, by the level of anxiety among Tampa Bay area residents. "The hype on this hurricane is unprecedented in my opinion," Bilodeau said. "Everybody wants to be told something about this hurricane. So many people are just waiting for us to say you're going to have to go."
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ounty emergency management officials learned their lessons well during Hurricane Elena in 1985 -- and that was the biggest problem Thursday as they debated how early to open the shelters.
