Former FEMA administrator tours Sarasota emergency center ahead of Irma review

Former FEMA administrator Craig Fugate took a tour of the Sarasota County Emergency Operations Center Thursday, as he and three other emergency managers are tasked with curating a review of the county’s response to Hurricane Irma.

The process will begin Friday with meetings with government officials and others who led the charge at the center during Irma, said Sarasota County emergency services director Rich Collins. The report won’t be expected until early 2018, which will be shared with elected officials before it’s finalized.

“The first thing I think we’re going to look at is what happened, and look at that from a standpoint of what were the lessons learned, what areas do we think went well, what areas we could do better at,” Fugate said. The amount of resources the county has as well as how self-sufficient it can be will also be considered.

Fugate — also known for his “Waffle House Index” that denotes the severity of damage in an area based on if the restaurant is open — will be creating the report alongside emergency management directors for Seminole County and the city of Orlando Alan Harris and Manny Soto, respectively, and the deputy director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, Jonathan Lord. Fugate was made available to the county through partnerships with the Charles and Margery Barancik Foundation and the Gulf Coast Community Foundation.

Collins said the county did “phenomenal” in getting ready its 13 shelters, which he said had never been done. Sarasota was preparing for Irma to be a Category 4 storm and the tactical in-teams had started clearing the streets around 1:30 a.m. as the storm was passing.

“We look at a community in its resiliency to disaster,” Collins said.

At first sight of the emergency operations center during a quick tour, Fugate already had a positive impression.

“You’ve got a pretty good concentration of all your commanding control for your first response in a hardened building that doesn’t have to evacuate, that’s survivable, that can provide for the immediate needs of the people working here …. That’s your key thing,” he said.

He noted that this wasn’t necessarily the case for county emergency operations centers in 2004, during his third year as Florida’s emergency management director that saw Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne. Sarasota’s new center opened in 2015, replacing an outdated and unfit building, while Manatee County’s opened in 2007.

In Manatee County, the review of its response came in the form of two closed door meetings, first with department heads in late October and second with other agencies like the sheriff’s office and nonprofits on Thursday, according to spokesman Nick Azzara.

“If we knew exactly where the storm was going to hit and how bad it was going to be, it would be really easy to respond to,” Fugate said. “I think that’s what the public has to keep in mind, is there is no certainty. That’s why we call them a forecast.”

This story was originally published November 16, 2017 at 4:40 PM with the headline "Former FEMA administrator tours Sarasota emergency center ahead of Irma review."