|
Officials are poised to adopt - this week - an
unrealistic and dangerous hurricane evacuation study
in order to justify increased development in the
Keys. |
PLEASE URGE THE
GOVERNOR AND CABINET TO REJECT THE 18.2 HOUR HURRICANE
EVACUATION MODEL PROPOSED BY
DCA.
WHAT TO DO:
email
NOW
(or phone on Monday -- contact info below) asking the
Governor and Cabinet members to:
- Reject DCAs’ finding the
Florida Keys clearance time has instantaneously declined
from 24 hours to 18.2 hours. Since such a paper-shuffle DOES
NOT improve safety, but rather only facilitates massive
growth. Subsequent evacuations will be less safe.
- Call for the required public review on all proposed
changes in clearance times BEFORE accepting any such
life-threatening assumptions.
- Ask for closer scrutiny of what
constitutes “substantial progress” in Monroe County’s Annual
Assessment. Substantial progress should mean much more than:
“50% complete”
PLEASE HELP NOW – the hearing is Tuesday, December 5, 2006
ACT NOW!
CALL OR SEND YOUR E-MAIL TO:
Governor
Jeb Bush
850-488-5152
flgov@myflorida.com
Attorney General Charlie
Crist
850-245-0145
AG@oag.state.fl.us
Chief Financial Officer
Tom Gallagher
850-413-2820
Tom.Gallagher@fldfs.com
Agriculture Commissioner
Charles Bronson
850-410-6747
commissioner@doacs.state.fl.us
BACKGROUND
INFORMATION CAN BE FOUND IN A FEW RECENT ARTICLES AND
EDITORIALS UNDER "HOT
TOPICS".
Some
additional background:
- It is wrong for the
Department of Community Affairs to report to the Commission
that the evacuation time for the Florida Keys is 18.2 hours.
- Two years ago, the Department reported
to the Commission that the Keys’ evacuation time was about
to exceed 24 hours due to growth.
- Now, with zero increases to evacuation capacity having
been made, but with pressure to allow significantly greater
amounts of development, the Department is suggesting that
the Commission should adopt 18.2 hours as the evacuation
number for planning purposes in the Keys.
-
This is not credible. Here
are the facts:
1. The 2006 South Florida Regional Planning Council Regional
Evacuation study recently modeled eight scenarios for the
evacuation of the Keys.
The resulting times range from 35.7 hours to 18.2 hours,
depending on the scenario being analyzed.
Under 6 of the 8 scenarios, the
modeled evacuation time is over 24 hours. All are lacking
substantial omissions of drive times, approaching an
additional 5 hours!
2. The 18.2-hour hurricane evacuation
policy framework approved for the Florida Keys had
no public review or input.
3. The scenario under which the model shows an
18.2 hour evacuation time is
based on the illogical
assumption that all tourists and mobile home dwellers have
already somehow evacuated – that they evacuated
48 hours PRIOR
to the realization that a regional evacuation was needed.
4. The Department of Community Affairs has offered to
issue as many as 3,500 work-force housing permits over the
next two years, if the county achieves the goals of its
state-mandated work plan, even though there is
not a definition for workforce housing in the Monroe County
Land Development Regulations and Comprehensive Plan.
5. The state’s decision to improve the “18 mile stretch” of
US 1 between Florida City and Key Largo
was premised on the assumption of a storm event that
would precipitate a regional evacuation - a large, rapidly
developing storm that intensified such that it was not
possible to sequence evacuations in South Florida. Yet now,
the Department of Community Affairs is assuming the opposite
– the best case scenario - with
the potential results
being both an in appropriately increased rate and amount of
development in the Keys and greater loss of life and
property as a result of inadequate evacuation times.
6. These types of serious questions have
been raised to the
staff of the Regional
Planning Council, which has pulled the study off its web
page, and will be revisiting the study. Prior to the removal
of the study, serious questions about the study's validity
were raised and remain
unanswered.
