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Staying home in a hurricane is often safer
©Associated Press
June 5, 2002
TALLAHASSEE -- The state needs to do a better job of not only telling people who should evacuate during a hurricane, but who should stay home and ride out the storm, Gov. Jeb Bush and his agency heads heard Tuesday.
Residents in flood zones need to leave when a storm threatens, but often people outside those areas join in the exodus, not realizing they may be safer at home, Department of Emergency Management Director Craig Fugate told officials.
Decades ago, ocean surges during hurricanes caused the most deaths, Fugate said. But in the last 20 years, freshwater flooding caused 59 percent of hurricane deaths and ocean surges only 1 percent, he said.
"In Florida, the deaths that have occurred in the last five years by freshwater flooding could all have been avoided if people had done one thing -- stayed in their home for about 24 hours," Fugate said.
Fugate also warned officials that many people now living in Florida have not experienced a devastating hurricane and may not take them seriously. He said there needs to be a "hurricane culture" in which people realize the threat of storms and how to prepare for them.
"Anybody that lived through Hurricane Andrew, when there's a storm out there, they react entirely different than people in other parts of the state because their hurricane culture came back with a vengeance," Fugate said.
Andrew came ashore Aug. 24, 1992 in South Florida. It became one of the most expensive natural disasters in United States history, causing $30.5-billion in damage. It killed 43 people in Florida.
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