Director of Emergency Management Kevin Guthrie shares what preparations Floridians must make for the upcoming super-charged hurricane season.
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00:00At the state level, we're certainly getting ourselves ready for a multiple
00:04storm strike season. You know, I've asked the individuals here at the State
00:09Emergency Response Team to be ready for the 04-05 combined seasons. That
00:14would put five to six storms inside of Florida. Again, we do not expect that to
00:18happen, but again, we want to prepare for the worst, and the worst would be a five
00:22to six storm season for the state of Florida, but we want to, we're going to
00:26certainly pray for the best. So those are all things that we're doing. We have more
00:29than 250% increased our contract staff and our contract vendors in a multiple
00:36array of areas such as logistics, staff augmentation, nursing, and so on. So
00:42that we're certainly ready for this hurricane season. As you indicated,
00:45there is potentially a supercharged one. All right. Well, for people who live in
00:49Florida or may be visiting, what can you give any kind of heads up here of how
00:54those folks can get prepared?
00:57Again, let us be worried about preparing for, you know, five, six storms, but what
01:02we want all Floridians to do, and even tourists that are coming in, is prepare
01:05for year one. If you're prepared for year one, then that makes our job a lot
01:10easier. So to do that, it basically boils down to five quick steps. Number
01:15one, you want to build a plan, get a plan, and then build a kit. That's step
01:19one and two. Right now, you want to go to our website, floridadesaster.org
01:23slash plan prepare to get your actual information to build your kit and
01:29prepare your plan. Then you want to go out and get your kit. June 1st, the
01:3314th, is our sales tax holiday. So make sure that the items on your kit are
01:38actually purchased in the next two weeks coming up. The third thing that
01:42we want to do is make sure that once you've got that plan and that kit ready,
01:46is that you know your zone, your evacuation zone, which is different than
01:49a flood zone, and then you know your home. What is your wind rating for your
01:53home? We have over evacuated florida in times of disasters by 2 to 3 times as
01:59much as what we actually need to evacuate. So only evacuate if we ask
02:03you to do that. The fourth thing is if you are asked to evacuate, you want to
02:07evacuate tens of miles, not hundreds of miles. So make sure that you're only
02:11going the necessary distance to get yourself away from the storm surge and
02:15those hurricane force winds. And then you need to be able to evacuate those
02:19tens of miles. You need to make sure that this time of year you keep your
02:22electric vehicles and your gas tanks halfway full. That's the new empty. When
02:27you get to halfway full, go ahead and fill that tank back up, fill that
02:31electric charge back up so that we don't have the long lines at gas stations
02:35when there is actual evacuation called for. So if you pay, if you follow
02:39those five easy steps, then you will be more successful. We will all be more
02:43successful at this upcoming hurricane season.