Short-term solution for Venice area to include coordinated transportation to safe shelters
NORTH PORT — Local government officials received another sneak peek at the evolution of Sarasota County’s future response to hurricanes Friday during the Convocation of Governments, hosted by the school district at the North Port campus of Sarasota Technical College.
A joint presentation by Sarasota County Emergency Services Director Rich Collins and Sarasota County School District Chief Operations Officer Scott Lempe highlighted the need for future evacuation orders to be issued clearly — using roads and landmarks and not just flood zones — and for all eligible shelters to be opened at the same time.
"The most important thing to do is open up the hardest, safest shelters for your citizens,” Collins said. “We should open them up quickly and we should open them up at the same time.
“An evacuation is an evacuation, leave this area to be safe,” he later added. “We’ll say what roads that impacts … make it easier for residents to know that they need to evacuate."
That philosophy echoed statements made last week by former Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Craig Fugate, who is conducting an independent review of the county’s response to Hurricane Irma.
In response to Irma, Sarasota County opened 13 shelters — including three special needs shelters for 1,600 people — and housed more than 20,000 people and 2,200 pets.
Standing before a flood zone map that also featured the location of county hurricane shelters, Collins noted that all of them were in flood zones D or E — the highest elevations.
“As we enter the Laurel and Nokomis area, we see an expanding area of lower topography,” he added, as an explanation for why none of those shelters were in the Venice-Nokomis area.
As Irma approached, Venice Mayor John Holic made a controversial call to open the Venice Community Center as a shelter. The structure was used by roughly 400 people who would have otherwise stayed in their homes.
Because they are on the island of Venice, neither Venice Elementary nor Venice High were built as shelters.
Taylor Ranch Elementary School, a fourth-tier shelter, was ruled out because of its location, construction and potential flooding.
The other three area schools, Venice Middle School and Garden Elementary School on Center Road and Laurel Nokomis School on Laurel Road, are not on the current list of shelters.
Lempe noted that the district and county hope to receive state funding for a study determine if any of those schools can be upgraded as potential shelters.
But even if one of those structures can be upgraded, funding would be needed to pay for that retrofit.
Lempe stressed that for the upcoming hurricane season, the best way to ensure the safety of Venice area residents is to develop and publicize a transportation plan for current shelters, stressing, “We’re going to help you get there, if you need help getting there.”
The long-range solution, he said, will be for the district to build a school in the northeast Venice area, near State Road 681 and Honore Avenue.
“When we build, we will work very closely with the community to make sure that school is an EHPA shelter. Potential shelters are evaluated under guidelines from the American Red Cross, the American Society of Civil Engineers, and Florida building codes — Enhanced Hurricane Protection Areas meet those guidelines and also have appropriate power, kitchen and restroom facilities to serve as shelters for at least eight hours.
The two officials explained that there are nine schools in Sarasota County that qualify as “safest-rated buildings,” under EHPA guidelines, which account for everything from structure elevation to roof construction.
One of those, Brentwood Elementary School, was not opened for Hurricane Irma because of campus renovations. The others — Attwater, Gulf Gate, Phillippi Shores elementary schools; Heron Creek and Woodland middle schools; and Booker, North Port and Riverview high schools — were among the 13 structures opened for Hurricane Irma.
Others were campuses that had EHPA qualified buildings that were part of retrofit construction.
The full Irma report will be reviewed at a joint meeting scheduled for 8 a.m. Feb. 9 at the Sarasota campus of Suncoast Technical College, 4748 S. Beneva Road, Sarasota.
Collins stressed that while Sarasota County prepared for a potential Category 4 hit, the portion of the storm that hit the area was significantly less than that.
“At the end of the day, Irma was a tropical storm-force winds in this county,” he said. “With an impact of some higher hurricane-force gust winds.”