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Survey finds some ill-prepared for storms

Pinellas emergency management officials worry that many residents will not evacuate if a major hurricane was aimed at Tampa Bay.

By TAMARA EL-KHOURY
Published June 2, 2006

Thirteen percent of Pinellas County residents living in areas most prone to storm surge and flooding either would not evacuate or did not know if they would if a major hurricane was approaching and officials called for an evacuation.

The figure was 10 percent in Hillsborough County.

"As far as I'm concerned those are the type of people who died when Hurricane Katrina rolled onto the coast,'' said Gary Vickers, Pinellas County's emergency management director.

The numbers are from a Tampa Bay hurricane evacuation survey based on phone interviews with 2,000 residents in Pasco, Pinellas, Hillsborough and Manatee counties. The interviews were conducted between December 2005 and January 2006.

The results of a similar survey after the 2004 hurricane season were disappointing, said Betti Johnson, principal planner with emergency management at the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council.

Many residents didn't know what evacuation zone they were in. They weren't prepared and didn't expect to evacuate, Johnson said.

The latest survey was prompted by an especially destructive hurricane season in 2005, when four hurricanes hit the state, and Katrina devastated New Orleans and parts of Mississippi. The planning council wanted to see if those storms affected the way Tampa Bay area residents would respond to a call for evacuation, Johnson said.

"Even after 2005, even though we saw an increase in 10 percent of people who said they would leave, it's still extremely low," Johnson said.

According to the survey, 45 percent of respondents living in a Level A evacuation zone in Pinellas County believe their home would be safe in a 100 mph hurricane. The number was the same for respondents living in Hillsborough.

"They would probably have between 6 and 8 feet of water in their homes," Johnson said.

The results will be used to build evacuation scenarios that will determine how long it will take residents to evacuate the area, Johnson said.

She also said the scenarios are based on the assumption that everyone told to evacuate by officials does in fact evacuate.

"I think it's a combination of lack of experience, lack of knowledge as to what storm surge can do and why it is so deadly and I think it's human nature that people don't want to think about it," Johnson said.

The mobile home park residents of Chesapeake Point in Tarpon Springs are good about evacuating, said seasonal resident Neal McLaughlin, who leaves to Oklahoma City for the entire hurricane season.

"They're all elderly folk," said McLaughlin, 75. "They're not adventurers.

[Last modified June 2, 2006, 05:42:59]