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Sidebar: Florida Learns



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Nov 16, 2007,

When Hurricane Andrew crashed through parts of southern Florida in 1992, frightened residents sat in the rubble of their homes for days, waiting for food and water, while looters emptied stores. Part of the problem, report�­ed Kate Hale, director of emergency management for Miami-Dade County at the time, was that federal agencies somehow came to believe that local of­ficials didn't want the aid they stood ready to provide. "The state was unable to coordinate effectively with the federal government," she said. And when state officials, arriving in Homestead by helicopter, saw the devastation all around them, they initially committed most of the state's relief resources to that city, "which was only a small part of the area of impact," she said.

In the 15 years since Andrew, Florida has overhauled its emergency management strategies, under the leadership of its governors. Now it sets the standard for emergency planning and response. "One of the biggest differences between how Florida and other states handle natural disasters lies in the degree of cooperation between cities, counties and the state," said a story in The Palm Beach Post in September 2005. "In Florida, they are in constant communication with one another as storms advance and during the recovery phase."

Having honed its emergency management capabilities through numer­ous hurricanes over the years, Florida can now move quickly when disas­ter strikes, either inside its own borders or in neighboring states. "Within hours of Katrina's landfall, Florida began deploying more than 3,700 first responders to Mississippi and Louisiana," wrote Gov. Jeb Bush in an op-ed piece in The Washington Post in September 2005.

Florida's emergency management plan depends on effective coordina­tion among numerous local and state officials, volunteer organizations, public and private health-care organizations, and utility companies. As gov­ernors plan for future disasters, they will find it critical to create similar networks of organizations, each with well rehearsed tactics they can deploy as soon as needed.


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