Shelter standards blasted

Local leaders suggest that the state lower requirements for hurricane shelters, which are in short supply.

By COLLINS CONNER

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 8, 2000

ORLANDO -- All day Thursday, a string of experts explained to county disaster preparedness officials why Florida's search for safe hurricane shelters had made the shortage worse.

On Friday, county leaders responded with two words: "Fix it."

Here's what the local leaders suggested:

Lower the standard for deciding whether a shelter is strong enough to survive a storm. The current standards are so high that most buildings fail.

Increase the money available for stormproofing shelters and make that money easier to get.

Hire engineers to supervise the screenings of buildings so counties don't keep losing shelters because of the mistakes of evaluators.

The suggestions came at the end of the state's two-day shelter summit -- a gathering of officials from the state Department of Community Affairs, the American Red Cross and county emergency management departments.

The summit was crucial, according to Frank Koutnik, chief of the department's office of Policy and Planning.

"The way we've been going ain't getting us where we need to be," he said.

Instead, the shelter search has pitted counties against the state, said the department's Craig Fugate.

"It has turned this into ... an adversarial situation," Fugate said. "And we can't (have) that."

The shelter search began seven years ago with a legislative mandate that Florida provide a safe refuge to every vulnerable resident fleeing a hurricane.

But legislators didn't include any money with their order, so the DCA spent five years creating a low-cost system for examining shelters to make sure they were safe for evacuees. The agency based its shelter study on a four-page pamphlet produced by the American Red Cross that said the buildings should be outside storm-surge zones, outside flood plains and able to withstand hurricane-force winds.

With no money to hire engineers to establish the adequacy of county shelters, the department turned the Red Cross guideline into a 15-point checklist that lay people could use to determine whether a proposed shelter was adequate.

Times research showed that examiners had too little time, training or information to do a thorough review, so they rejected most of the buildings they checked. In eight years, Florida's deficit grew tenfold to a shortage of 1.5-million shelter spaces.

In Pasco County, where the DCA review cut shelter spaces in half, an engineer hired by the Times determined that the department's findings on seven buildings were wrong.

Emergency-management directors in other counties also found errors in shelter studies that left them few -- if any -- shelter spaces.

Thursday and Friday, they voiced their frustration.

In large part, it focused on the Red Cross guideline the state used for its checklist.

The standards exclude buildings that have been used as shelters for years, said Annette Doying of the Hernando County Emergency Management Department.

"They've stood the test of time," Doying said.

Several county officials noted that no one has been killed because of a shelter failure in the United States.

"When Hurricane Andrew hit Miami, we had buildings with extreme damage, but no one was injured and no one was dead," said Pasco's emergency management director, Michele Baker.

Koutnik said it was unlikely the state would lower the standard.

"It's not the state, it's not the locals, it's the Red Cross' standard," he said. And the Red Cross will not open shelters that don't meet its safety standard, he said.

County officials also complained about the limited money available to stormproof shelters and get them back on the approved list.

The Legislature set aside $18-million for measures such as putting shutters on windows or braces in roofs, but getting a share of that money is difficult, local officials said.

"You have some counties that are not as strong as others in writing grant applications," Doying said. "And the strong will win every time. The grant process is not equitable."

Local leaders also want the state to give school districts the money to stormproof schools under construction.

Hillsborough emergency management director Larry Gispert said his school board is building plenty of new facilities, trying to follow another state mandate -- to eliminate all portable classrooms.

"The state says hurricane (proofing) new construction only adds 2 to 3 percent to the cost of new construction," he said. "Our school officials say, "We don't have the money. We're so far behind on school construction, we're never going to catch up.' "

Koutnik said he didn't know whether more money was an option.

"That will have to be considered," he said. "Who knows?"

In the meantime, he said, the suggestions by county leaders will be taken to Department of Community Affairs secretary Steve Seibert for his review.

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