Tom Willi should stop misleading the people

Clarification is in order regarding the state's "new" policy requiring that the Keys be able to evacuate in 24 hours when a strong hurricane approaches. Referring to the policy as "new" implies that the ridiculous figure of 18 hours, put forth by County Administrator Tom Willi at a Cabinet meeting last December, was valid in some way. It never was, and it has been thoroughly discredited.

The 18-hour figure was just a partial result in one particular scenario from a larger evacuation study, and was based on a set of assumptions that cannot be assumed — that a sizable part of the evacuation is not part of the evacuation. In its infinite wisdom, Monroe County intends to evacuate tourists and mobile home residents before a hurricane becomes a threat, but it just doesn't work that way. The state Department of Community Affairs official quoted in your article is absolutely correct when he said, "If the plan calls for less than everyone to evacuate and everyone decides to leave, then you have under-planned in a way that puts lives at risk, and that's not the approach we are taking."

I could not have said it better. The 18-hour Keys evacuation was not "approved" by the governor and Cabinet. In fact, at the next Cabinet meeting after the one where Mr. Willi unveiled the incomplete figure, Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher made a point of having the minutes of the previous meeting revised to show that Monroe County's claimed 18-hour clearance time was presented "for information purposes only."

Evacuation clearance time is defined as commencing when the first evacuating vehicle enters the road network and ending when the last evacuating vehicle reaches its destination at a place of safety outside the threat area. That concept cannot be interpreted to allow the clock not to start when evacuation begins but at some later time that makes our numbers look good. That's idiocy and it puts lives at risk.

What nobody wants to talk about is that the evacuation "improvement" charade is an insidious attempt to justify an increase in the rate of development in the Keys, which will only make evacuation take longer. To imply that the state's policy is new is misleading, and Mr. Willi should stop misleading the people and the state officials who oversee our county's policies.

Dennis Henize, Cudjoe Key