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JAY CRIDLINOfficials learn that it pays to be cautious, at the expense of some inconvenience. They plan to use the experience to streamline future evacuations.
TAMPA - Hours after Hurricane Charley bypassed the Tampa Bay area, Pat Bean went home to find lawn furniture in her pool. Somehow, the rain and wind had found her Tampa home.
"I would not say it was a perfect summer evening," Bean said.
Still, the damage was minimal, as it was across Hillsborough County. For that, Bean, the county administrator, is thankful.
"We can replace buildings, we can replace vehicles, we can replace any kind of property that is damaged," she said. "We can't replace lives."
Saturday, Hillsborough officials had a chance to pause and review their emergency response. A day after the storm, they regarded Charley - the closest thing to a hurricane Tampa has seen in decades - as the ultimate practice session.
"It could not have been a better drill, because it was for real," said Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio.
Iorio, Bean and others had high praise Saturday for the actions of their management teams. Little hurricane-related damage was reported anywhere in the county, and injuries were at a minimum.
"People talk about our tax dollars at work," said Tom Scott, chairman of the Hillsborough County Commission. "This, to me, is our tax dollars at work."
The only portion of the county that actually received hurricane-strength wind and rain was the sparsely populated southeast corner. Still, county officials refused to lift the mandatory evacuation order until late Friday night.
Bean said under the circumstances, it was impossible to be overcautious.
"We had every reason to believe, up until about 1 p.m., that that storm was coming here," she said. "Thank goodness we took the precautions, even if it meant that some people were inconvenienced, some people may have been frustrated and, at the end of the day, maybe even a little disappointed."
Scott said the response was a model for future hurricane reaction. "I think we have to do what we did this time - that is, stay on top of it, monitor it, make sure we evacuate," he said.
Already, though, Iorio and Bean are discussing ways to streamline the community's hurricane policy.
For example, several drivers complained Thursday that even after the Pinellas evacuation order, tolls were still being collected on the Veterans Expressway, Suncoast Parkway, Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway and Sunshine Skyway bridge. It was not until Friday morning that highway officials announced that tolls on those roads, all in Hillsborough County, would be suspended.
"That's got to change," Iorio said.
Bean said that in the future, Hillsborough officials may cancel tolls as soon as Pinellas orders an evacuation, if not sooner.
"We could have practiced that exercise 100 times, but we never would have learned that because we'd never take a practice quite that far," she said.
The county will also review its evacuation maps.
Bean said the Emergency Operations Center received more calls than expected from people who weren't sure if their homes were in evacuation zones.
"Is there some way we can make this very clear for people?" Bean wondered Saturday. "We could have saved a whole bunch of calls coming into the citizen response center. We could have saved a lot of people a lot of angst having to try to figure it out."
"One thought that we had," Iorio said, "was an Internet-based system. If there is a storm approaching, you would type in your address, and it would indicate what evacuation zone you were in."
After a complete review, Iorio and Bean expect to tweak city and county emergency policies by the start of hurricane season 2005.
"We can practice our exercises as many times as we want to, and it's never the same as the real thing," Bean said. "We can always learn from something like this and do better."
Jay Cridlin can be reached at 813 661-2442 or cridlin@sptimes.com