MANATEE COUNTY, Fla. — With hurricane season set to begin in June, Manatee County emergency management officials shared how residents can get prepared and lessons learned from last season.
Hurricane Ian was the most costly disaster Manatee County has ever faced – causing nearly $100 million dollars in damage.
On Monday, Acting Director of Public Safety Jodie Fiske and Deputy Director Steve Litchauer shared how they worry that residents may become complacent after avoiding a direct hit from Hurricane Ian last year.
"Manatee County has not seen a direct impact, a direct landfall since 1921,” Fiske said. “So when you look at that and you look at the potential for impacts. There's generations of people that have been here that have been able to say, well, that wasn't us. We don't have to worry about it. But things can shift on a dime."
As the Florida Division of Emergency Management’s statewide field supervisor of regional response coordination teams and the regional response coordinator for Region 6 – which includes 10 counties in southwest Florida – Fiske helped with Hurricane Ian recovery. Her experience with the state also included emergency responses to the Parkland school shooting, COVID-19, and Surfside building collapse.
Litschauer has worked for public safety for 50 years, including working at the Bradenton Police Department and Manatee County Sheriff’s Office prior to joining Emergency Management. As deputy director, he now oversees beach patrol, animal welfare, code enforcement, and emergency management.
Both shared the biggest lesson they hope residents have learned from Hurricane Ian.
“What we saw with the flooding in Myakka that a storm isn't just wind during the hurricane, is not just the rain during the hurricane, but flooding comes one to three days later,” Litschauer said. “And the Myakka area, DeSoto County area experienced great flooding that affected them for weeks or months afterwards. And flooding can occur anywhere. It's just not along the coastline or the river.”
Residents should have supplies and be ready to be self-sufficient for at least three days.
“If we're looking at an impact again like Ian, posting swift water rescue, high water rescue, closer to Myakka,” Fiske said. “Directly post-impact, a lot of the resources went down south and then we had the additional, it's a disaster within the disaster. So we had to regroup and push resources someplace else.”
But for residents, Fiske stressed the importance of getting information from a trusted source and getting registered for local emergency alerts.
“We're always encouraging people to be prepared, have that kit just put it on a shelf in the garage, and if you don't have to worry about it this year, take it off next year and dust it off,” she said. “I am concerned about the level of almost complacency.”
Manatee County residents wishing for more information on how they can prepare are encouraged to attend the county's Third Annual Community Hurricane Preparedness Expo from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., Thursday evening, at the Bradenton area convention center.
