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Less worried, but still wary
By JO BECKER © St. Petersburg Times, published September 26, 1998 At the emergency operations center, County Administrator John Gallagher began flipping through the television stations, listening for a mention of Pasco. He didn't catch one. The night before, Hillsborough, Pinellas and Hernando counties had ordered a mandatory evacuation, effective Friday morning. At the time, Pasco emergency management director Michele Baker, who had decided to hold off issuing an evacuation order but had warned one would likely be issued, was baffled. "We looked at each other and said, "What do they know that we don't know.?'Has our lead time changed? No. Has the storm worsened? No," Baker recalled. "I'd never heard of ordering an evacuation in advance." But Friday, even as weather forecasts appeared to improve, Baker was wondering whether Pasco should have done the same. The ability to communicate information as early as possible to residents is crucial to any emergency management operation. Whereas the other Bay area counties capitalized on the nightly news and gave their residents advance notice, Baker was struggling Friday morning to get the word out that Pasco was following suit. Melinda Bacon, spokeswoman for the local NBC affiliate, said her station wasn't given enough lead time to put Pasco on its morning news. "We had so much coming in and we were so busy that by the time we realized what we had, we had to put it on during a break in the Today show." It's for that very reason that more and more counties are in fact ordering evacuations in advance, said Jim Christie, spokesman for the state Emergency Operation Center. While Baker said she wasn't aware of the practice, Christie said "It's not unheard of, and it's becoming more readily used because it gives people more time to get prepared." Instead, Pasco County resident information hot line operators fielded call after call from people wondering what to do Friday morning. The calls came in from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m., the ideal time for residents to make their decision to get out. "People were upset that Pasco County wasn't mentioned on the news," said Loraine Cors, the shift supervisor. Baker and others started phoning the 55 local radio and television stations that serve the area, asking for more coverage. By 11 a.m. the situation improved, but Baker said it wasn't soon enough. "The media was programmed to talk about those other counties and wasn't adapting to new information," Baker said. "We were listening to the news, and they would talk about Pinellas, Hillsborough then skip to Hernando. . . . It's like we dropped off the radar screen." One country music radio station apparently misunderstood Pasco's Thursday decision to hold off and broadcast that there would be absolutely no impact to Pasco residents, Baker said. Meanwhile, Baker had counted on using the public access channel at a cable company that serves central Pasco to warn mobile home residents Friday that the evacuation order was in effect, but when she went to call them, she found out the station was closed. Had she known all that, Baker said, "I might have done things differently." Baker said she did what she did because her feeling was that the county shouldn't evacuate people unless it is absolutely necessary. She wanted the extra hours to track Georges, and the fact that the hurricane dawdled over Cuba gave her time do that. "How do you take back an evacuation order?" she asked. It was too early to tell Friday whether the media problems Baker experienced would make a difference. "We won't know until it's all over," Baker said.
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EW PORT RICHEY -- County officials ordered the evacuation of Pasco's coastline at 6 a.m. Friday once it became clear that Hurricane Georges was headed this way. Then they waited for television and radio news to broadcast their decision.
