Being Prepared for the Storms that will be Coming: Governor's Hurricane Conference 2024

Dr. Michael Brennan, Director of the National Hurricane Center, speaks to attendees at the 38th Governor's Hurricane Conference in West Palm Beach, 5-15-2024

In my private capacity as a citizen and an employee of ESA South, Inc., I have the opportunity to once again attend the Governor's Hurricane Conference 2024 in West Palm Beach this week.

Lots of networking opportunities are present here with disaster response/recovery companies and other purveyors in the exhibition hall--but there are also informative presentations and other learning opportunities available to inform my other position as County Commissioner.

 At this year's event, 65 of 67 Florida counties are represented, as well as multiple other states and countries.  This event is the premiere tropical storm preparation conference in the world.

 This morning at the opening general assembly of the conference- the attendees heard from the

director of the National Hurricane Center, Dr. Michael Brennan. He went through a slide deck presentation describing the changes and improvements made in forecasting for storms since 2004. He also described the fact that over the last 10 years, 100 Floridians have been killed by Hurricanes as the primary cause. In the same period, 200 were killed after the Hurricanes by secondary causes. His big challenge ahead: How to deal with storms that rapidly intensify like Otis did last year to Acapulco? (that storm went from a tropical depression to a Cat 5 in 72 hours) hashtag

Later in the morning, the attendees heard best practices from the rural, big-bend counties Sewanee, Madison, and Dixie.  These three counties were the hardest hit by last year's Category 3 storm Idalia.  They were joined by Kevin Guthrie, the State of Florida's Director of Emergency Management. Although there were 20 named storms last year, only 7 became major hurricanes and only 1 hit Florida, according to the presenters at this morning's general session.  Nevertheless, Idalia did affect multiple counties and caused an estimated 3.5 Billion in damage in Florida.

As hard as it is to believe--communication with citizens was the biggest issue with Idalia recovery, according to the panel.  Cell service was out and the EOC had to be evacuated and the computer networks at the temporary EOC would not work with the EOC software.  Folks lost power and could not get messages from TV so the communications with the citizens was a real challenge. This and the removal of large oak trees from roadways.  "We had all of these people show up to volunteer to help but none of them had equipment big enough to remove these large trees" said panelist Chris Volz, director of Sewanee County Emergency Management.  The storm surge on the coast ended up being 11 feet tall, and all of the members of the panel celebrated the fact that no citizens were lost in these counties due to the storm surge.

 In some of these rural areas, old fashioned written communication is still a viable alternative to get the storm preparation message out.  "We utilize messages in church bulletins and flyers in stores to get the message out" said panelist Scott Garner, Director of the Dixie County Emergency Management office.

 State Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie described a new initiative coming that will help with messaging around the state.  "We have never once, not ever, lost an FM station Antenna in the state of Florida" so the FM stations are a good place for us to continue to give our messages to citizens"  said Guthrie.  He also let the audience know there is a new state plan to further utilize FM stations for storm warnings.  He also let the audience know about an obscure state law that allows for counties' emergency managment departments to take over digital commercial billboards in times of emergencies for emergency communications.

 Lots of good information on preparation this morning.  I'm sure there will be much more this afternoon, tomorrow, and Friday.