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Will Shelters for 35,000 in Florida's Manatee County be Enough for the Next Hurricane?

The county relies on 25 public schools as shelters with a total capacity for 35,000 evacuees. During Irma, 24 schools sheltered 25,000 evacuees, about 5 percent of whom came from other counties.

Precisely when it will come knocking and how damaging it may be is not in any forecast. Yet Manatee County officials have on their radar screen a compounding concern about whether they will continue to have adequate shelter capacity for local evacuees -- as well as Floridians fleeing that future storm from other counties.

On Tuesday, the County Commission talked with their department heads about how the community fared during Hurricane Irma in September – and about potential deficits in shelter space because of changing storm surge maps and statewide shelter plans.

The county relies on 25 public schools as shelters with a total capacity for 35,000 evacuees. During Irma, 24 schools sheltered 25,000 evacuees, about 5 percent of whom came from other counties.

In January, however, the state will update its shelter plan. For that purpose, state emergency planners divide Florida into 10 regions – each of which represents a multi-county regional planning council that weighs in on land use matters.

Manatee is the southernmost county in the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council area, which extends north to Citrus County.

Manatee officials are concerned that, because of the area's expanding population, the state is likely to find the six-county region and the county to have a shelter deficit.

During Irma, the county ordered a mandatory evacuation for Zone A, which includes coastal areas and all mobile home parks. It later called for a voluntary evacuation for Zone B, which is more inland.

If a more powerful storm than Irma hits and some or all of Zones C, D and E are under a mandatory evacuation order as well, Manatee – with a population of more than 375,000 that is predicted to grow to 535,200 by 2045 – could experience a severe shelter shortage.

Emergency officials continue to encourage residents who must evacuate to stay with friends or families on higher ground or try to find a hotel room. Public shelters are intended to be "a last resort ... a lifeboat," Public Safety Director Bob Smith said.

Even so, the next storm could compel far more than 25,000 evacuees to show up at local shelters. And, if those shelters are at capacity, Manatee evacuees may discover that counties to the north are running out of protected public spaces to take cover as well.

Compounding the challenge are Federal Emergency Management Agency flood maps that are updated every five years. Already areas of the county that were not in an evacuation zone several years ago are now included in Zone E on the latest maps, John Osborne, the county's infrastructure and strategic planning official, said.

Because of climate change, "storm surge maps could become more colorful," Osborne warned. Coastal flood Zone A, designated in red on those maps, could appear to hemorrhage.

Furthermore, as those maps are updated, some schools that have been used as shelters may be deemed vulnerable to storm surge. If so, those campuses could no longer qualify as shelters.

Earlier this year, county commissioners became frustrated with the School Board when they learned that three campuses to be constructed in Parrish will not be "hardened" to be used as shelters.

The commissioners intend to schedule a meeting with the School Board after the holidays to see if they can get the school district to make certain future campuses meet shelter criteria. They say they will appeal to the state Legislature if the school district needs assistance with the additional cost, which can be several million dollars for each school.

Meanwhile, the commissioners are considering whether future county facilities, such as the proposed East Manatee Library, should be constructed as potential shelters. If so, they also would have to consider how to staff those locations during a storm.

They also want to take a closer look at their own 1,700 employees, hundreds of whom must be on duty during a storm or ready to participate in the clean-up immediately afterward. During Irma, emergency and other officials stationed at the Public Safety Complex in Samoset were crowded but had ample provisions.

Public Works employees endured the storm in tougher conditions. Department Director Ron Schulhofer said that 180 people – 85 of his employees and their family members – plus their pet dogs, cats and ferrets sheltered at the Public Works complex in east Bradenton. They shared one refrigerator and one shower.

"We could not have made it work another 24 hours," Schulhofer said.

Another consideration is the jail, which is in a storm surge zone near Port Manatee.

During Irma, Sheriff Rick Wells chose not to evacuate the inmates - who probably would have been taken to an inland county. The complex lost power, however, and relied on generators to keep critical services, such as elevators, operating.

Commissioners say they need to consider whether, in the long term, the county should relocate the jail to a location that is less vulnerable to a storm.

"All in all, we were lucky" during Irma, said Commissioner Robin DiSabatino, who helped supervise the county's storm response from the Public Safety Complex. "We dodged a bullet." Now, she noted, county officials need to be "thinking about the next one."

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