The alert plan meant unique exposure for Gimenez as he runs for Congress to challenge incumbent Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell in Florida’s 26th District. Cellphone alerts went out on April 3 and April 6, each preceded by seven sirens and featuring a reminder that it’s “safer at home” from “Mayor Carlos Gimenez.”
That sign-off was a switch from what the mayor’s emergency-management team had submitted to Gimenez communications director Myriam Marquez for approval ahead of the April 3 debut. The afternoon of April 2, Frank Rollason, the county’s Emergency Management director, sent a draft alert to Marquez for approval that was to be signed “Miami-Dade Emergency Management.”
“Please advise when we can send,” Rollason wrote. Marquez wrote back approving language that had the message coming from Rollason’s agency.
A ‘Safer at Home’ message by text alert
On Wednesday, Rollason said he had recommended to Gimenez that the alerts go out under his name to make the message more accessible. At a staff meeting the morning of April 3 with Gimenez and others, Rollason said “he brought up the idea of putting his name at the end to lend more credibility and make it more of a personal message.” Gimenez agreed, Rollason said, and Marquez gave the final sign-off later that morning.Records released by the county, and first reported by NBC6, show Marquez had initially approved the more generic sign-off on the night of April 2. By the morning of the 3rd, after the staff meeting with Gimenez, the message went out under the mayor’s name.
Gimenez has addressed the switch in prior public statements. Asked why the county’s first emergency alert in late March was generic while later ones featured his name, Gimenez told reporters on April 6 that “I’m the face of Miami-Dade County.”
But the internal communications shed light on some of the backstory behind the trio of alerts that was supposed to kick off a regular series of jarring reminders scheduled to arrive on residents’ phones three times a week.
In the emails, Rollason laid out a schedule of morning alerts every Monday and Friday and afternoon alerts every Wednesday. Instead, the third and final alert (so far) went out April 6.
That day brought complaints on Twitter and beyond about dropped calls and disruption, prompting Gimenez’s top aide to question the plan.
“I have seen posts about a call to a bank being cut off and a work conference call,” Gimenez chief of staff Alex Ferro texted Rollason on April 6, according to records released to the Miami Herald. “Can we please look into that? Is there a way to have that not happen?”
Rollason wrote back that the federal Wireless Emergency Alerts system’s “entire purpose” is “to interrupt whatever activity is going on so you are forced to look at the alert.” He suggested sending alerts out later, when they’d be less disruptive to workday calls.
FEMA’s guide to alerts
The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s guide to the alert systemsays calls aren’t supposed to drop when alerts arrive. But several Miami-Dade residents on April 6 posted complaints about losing calls because of alerts tied to the county’s well-publicized “Safer at Home” campaign to avoid nonessential trips in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19.The next Gimenez alert with the “safer at home” reminder was set to go out two days later, on the afternoon of Wednesday, April 8.
In an email to Rollason, Marquez said they could get final approval from the mayor at a 4 p.m. call that day and brought up the same dropped-call issues Ferro raised in his text message two days earlier. “Mayor was asked about the last alert in a virtual press conference we had on Monday,” she wrote, summarizing posts about disrupted calls. “Sigh it’s always something.”
In a statement last week, Marquez said the scheduled alert plan was dropped after Miami-Dade decided they weren’t needed any more. “Alerts will go out as conditions warrant,” she wrote. “County finding strong compliance with stay ‘safer at home’ and social distancing and mask orders.”
Rollason said the decision was made to hold off on alerts unless the “pandemic became considerably worse.” With hospitalization rates mostly steady, Rollason said the county “never went back to it.”
Miami-Dade’s alert plans attracted some friction from the start. The first went out on March 27. It was unsigned and declared “All residents are urged to remain in their homes except for essential activities.”
At the time, Gimenez was in a public dispute with Miami Mayor Francis Suarezover the city’s “shelter-in-place” order telling residents to limit trips to essential functions. Gimenez called the language too alarming and misleading, since “shelter-in-place” typically is used for an immediate threat, like a shooter or a tornado.
Hours after the county’s first alert, Gimenez released a video calling the county’s debut emergency message well-meaning but misguided. “They may have gone a little bit overboard,” he said of his Emergency Management staff.
Gimenez’s public reaction had Emergency Management cautious about the next alert. In an email to aides on April 2, Rollason wrote he needed to get approval on wording.
“We need to talk to make sure we don’t get any backlash from the Mayor,” he wrote.
This story was updated to include new comments from Miami-Dade Emergency Operations director Frank Rollason on why he said he recommended text alerts carry Mayor Carlos Gimenez’s name. It also was updated to include more precise language on approvals granted by Communications Director Myriam Marquez for the county’s text-alert plans.
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