|
24-hour evacuation gets approval
By
Alyson Matley
amatley@keynoter.com
Neugent lone dissenter on the commission
Without so much as a repaving of the roads, Monroe County on Wednesday
pared a day off the time it takes to evacuate the county under threat of
a hurricane.
The County Commission, during its regular meeting in Key Largo, approved
a staged evacuation plan that theoretically reduces evacuation time of
Keys residents from 48 hours to 24.
"This is not about hurricane improvement," Commissioner George Neugent
said. Neugent's was the sole no vote.
"Twenty-four hours is not doable. The hurricane evacuation formula has
been the mother for building permits. It's a lie, and it's insulting for
the [state Department of Community Affairs] to ask us to do something
that is flawed."
Reducing evacuation time was one of the major goals set by a working
group appointed by Thaddeus Cohen, secretary of the DCA. The group met
monthly from September to January to draft the plan.
Current policy requires only that emergency managers "implement
procedures" for evacuating according to the county's evacuation plan.
The
new language stipulates the 24-hour evacuation time.
Some environmentalists accuse county planners of cutting the time in
order to increase the number of building permits, since the county's
rate-of-growth ordinance that limits the number of permits issued is
built upon hurricane evacuation times.
"This merely shuffles numbers to create the appearance of improvement
without any actual improvement," said Dennis Henize, president of the
environmental organization Last Stand. "The idea that the Keys can be
evacuated in 24 hours is already a fiction."
"The
truth is, most people that live here don't evacuate and won't evacuate
in the future and are not going to be leaving here, so they're not part
of the mix," countered Commissioner Murray Nelson. "I just don't see
this issue as being about evacuation."
Commissioner David Rice agreed that the tie between building permits and
evacuation times was an artifice.
"There never was a connection," he said. "What it does is create in
Monroe County a growth control mechanism that we call ROGO which rewards
people with enough money to build homes. In my opinion, it's been a sham
since day one."
County Planning Director Marlene Conaway said the change would not
increase the 197 annual building permits the unincorporated county gets
from the state except for a possible increase in workforce housing
permits.
In the meantime, Emergency Management officials say 24 hours is not
realistic.
"Thirty-six hours is our comfort level, and it will remain so," said
Director of Emergency Management Irene Toner.
Both Marathon and Islamorada have also adopted the 24-hour evacuation
time. |
