Episode 11 Lessons from Irma: Don’t bet your life!

This week, host Dan Zehner catches up with Tom Iovino, the public information director for the Florida Department of Health in Manatee County. Iovino, who mans the county’s emergency operations center during hurricanes, talks about storm preparation in the Tampa Bay area and about what he learned from Hurricane Irma. Although the Florida forecast was dire, precipitating the largest evacuation in the state’s history, Hurricane Irma took an unexpected eastward course, which improved the forecast dramatically and left the Tampa-Orlando area relatively unscathed. Despite relatively light damage, however, there was plenty to learn from this storm. For days after the storm, a major problem was lack of power. Iovino lists items missing in his own hurricane kit: an extra flashlight, a power brick, and a battery-operated fan. Traffic accidents were frequent, he says, due to incautious drivers sailing through intersections with no traffic lights. While he and his area first-responders hunkered down to wait out the storm, his center was still getting phone calls from people who decided – at the last minute – that they needed help. Such poor planning endangers the lives of first responders, and he warned that even first responders cannot rescue people in the midst of a Cat 5 hurricane. Iovino urges everyone in hurricane-prone regions to plan ahead, and the best way to know if the threat is serious is to listen to the National Weather Service. Iovino recalls what a beloved area weatherman, Dick Fletcher, was fond of saying: “If you don’t listen to what the emergency managers are telling you, you are betting your life they are wrong.” Iovino urges everyone to be safe and plan ahead, to take what they’ve learned from the last storm and apply it to the next.