Manatee hurricane evacuation map revised

MANATEE — About 6.5 percent more people will have to evacuate if a Category 1 hurricane makes a direct hit on Manatee County.

That was what elected officials were told Tuesday at a Council of Governments meeting.

Laurie Feagans, emergency management chief in the county Public Safety Department, gave the officials a preview of the revised evacuation zone maps.

Because a more accurate system of measuring the topography of the county was used, some property and homes that were in the Category 2 zone in the 2005 maps are now in the Category 1, meaning residents will have to evacuate sooner when a storm is approaching.

Feagans said the Light Detection and Ranging, or LIDAR, technology had a vertical precision of within 6 inches, compared to a variance of 5 feet or more with the federal government maps used to establish the previous evacuation zones.

As expected, much of the changes in the new map are close to bodies of water, such as Sarasota Bay and the Manatee River.

There is an area of about 60 square blocks in Northwest Bradenton that previously was in the Category 2, or Level B evacuation zone, that were upgraded to the Category 1, or Level A zone.

For those residents it means when a Category 1 storm, which has sustained winds of between 74-95 mph, is forecast to come ashore, the county will order an evacuation of the Level A zone.

A storm modeling tool called SLOSH, or Sea and Lake Overland Surge from a Hurricane, is used to determine the evacuation zones.

The topography of the Level A zone lends it to be flooded from a storm surge of at least 6 feet a Category 1 storm creates.

Another area that changed with the new maps is Bayshore Gardens.

Much of the neighborhood was in the Level A, or first-to-evacuate zone, under the old maps, but is now split between the Level B and Level C zones.

But at the same time. a large portion of land east of U.S. 41 between Whitfield Avenue and Cortez Road is now upgraded from Level E to Level D.

An interactive map showing where the new evacuation zones are located can be found on the county Web site at www.mymanatee.org

Printed maps also will be available at county and municipal facilities, Feagans said.

Another change in the maps that will be used as a standard across the state, is the color scheme.

Whereas before the highest alert, or first-to-evacuate zone, was a pretty, pastel purple, it is now a fiery, alarming red.

Feagans emphasized that although experts dictate statically what a storm surge for a specific category storm would be, most times the surge is many feet higher because of the wave action or a high tide.

Once an area is flooded, an individual is cut off from any emergency assistance until after the storm event.

One point Feagans made was that the evacuation zone maps do not affect flood insurance rate maps.