COMMENTARY
Who is in charge if Tampa is hit by a hurricane?
A county wide
elected mayor would reduce any confusion over just
who was in charge, should Hillsborough county ever
face a disastrous hurricane. Our county
Administrator Pat Bean isn't even allowed to meet
with the City Mayor to discuss how the County and
the City will work together should a disaster
strike. If they are unable to talk prior to such
event, who really thinks they will be talking during
chaos. From all outward appearances the behavior of
the Commission would suggest that they are the ones
who have and continue to create the large divide
between the City of Tampa and Hillsborough County.
We witnessed first hand the inability of government
within government to communicate in New Orleans last
year, does Tampa really want to face such an
outcome?
"County Says It Would Call The Shots If Big
Storm Hits"
By ELLEN GEDALIUS and MARK HOLAN
Published September 13, 2005
The Tampa Tribune
TAMPA Hillsborough County officials are
replacing a discussion on hurricane
preparedness with Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio for
a news conference to announce they're in
charge if a storm strikes the area.
Officials today will try to reassure the
public that Hillsborough County has an
evacuation plan for residents who require
special assistance and emphasize that state
law says the county -- not the city -- is in
charge of disaster management.
"There seems to be an awful lot of confusion
out there," County Administrator Pat Bean
said.
The decision to hold a news conference was
made late Monday, hours after a meeting
between Iorio and Bean was scratched for the
second time in five days.
After watching Hurricane Katrina coverage,
Iorio called Bean and told her she was
worried about whether people would evacuate
if a storm threatened locally.
A meeting was set for 4 p.m. last Thursday.
Bean canceled the discussion less than two
hours before they were to begin so the
county administrator could meet with
Commissioner Ronda Storms.
Storms wanted to talk to Bean about HARTline
and a neighborhood services center in Plant
City.
Bean said Storms wanted to meet before a
scheduled budget hearing.
On Friday, Bean's and Iorio's assistants
tentatively set a meeting for 11 a.m. today.
By Monday morning, Bean canceled the
meeting, citing a variety of
hurricane-preparation tasks commissioners
assigned to her.
Although the city and county governments
often are at odds on issues, Bean said
public safety, not politics, influenced her
decision to hold a news conference.
"I am not a politician," Bean said. "Nothing
I'm doing is politically motivated. There's
no lack of clarity on my part as to who is
in authority."
Bean said if emergency plans fail during a
disaster, she has no doubt the public would
hold her accountable.
According to Florida law, counties are in
charge of disasters, and a seven-member
panel of county, Tampa, Temple Terrace and
Plant City officials guides decision making.
Bean left open the possibility she would
meet with Iorio. Iorio still wants to meet
with Bean.
"I can't imagine that we wouldn't talk,"
Iorio said. "It's not about jurisdiction.
It's about public safety."
In New Orleans, local, state and federal
government officials have been arguing over
who failed to manage the disaster.
"I'd think the vast majority of citizens
would think we would talk," Iorio said. "If
a Category 4 or 5 storm ever hits, it's
going to take everyone working together."
"If storm hits, who's the boss?"
The Tampa mayor wants to talk with
Hillsborough County officials to
develop a plan to coordinate and
manage an emergency.
BRADY DENNIS, SAUNDRA AMRHEIN and JANET
ZINK
Published September 14, 2005
St. Petersburg Times
TAMPA - When it comes to talking
hurricanes, the mayor and county
administrator will have some company.
The County Commission voted Tuesday to
ensure that commission Chairman Jim
Norman is present at any such meeting
between Mayor Pam Iorio and county
Administrator Pat Bean.
"The whole idea is to get people to
talk," Commissioner Mark Sharpe said
afterward. The commissioners wanted to
see to it "that if people are talking,
you want as many people at the table as
possible."
Commissioner Kathy Castor, who voted
against the idea, saw it differently.
She called it "micromanaging" and
"unconscionable."
"That is the kind of bureaucracy and
turf battle that people are fed up
with," Castor said. "You think we would
have learned from Hurricane Katrina."
The decision follows a phone call by
Iorio to Bean over Labor Day weekend to
suggest the two meet to talk about
disaster preparedness.
Bean agreed, and they scheduled a
meeting for Sept. 8. But after Iorio
announced there would be a news
conference after the meeting, Bean
canceled at the last minute, saying she
needed to meet with a county
commissioner. She rescheduled for
Tuesday morning but canceled that
meeting, too.
Questioned Tuesday, Bean vowed to work
with other local officials, even as she
asserted that the buck will stop with
her.
State law "clearly puts the county
governments in command of emergency
management," Bean, the county
administrator, said Tuesday. "We are the
ones in charge."
She said she would seek a meeting with
"all the mayors," referring to Tampa,
Plant City and Temple Terrace.
Iorio could not be reached about the
commission's vote to insist that their
chairman be present. She said earlier
that she was trying to work with the
county "in the spirit of total
cooperation.
"If anything catastrophic hits our
community, we've all got to work
together," Iorio said. "It seems like a
common-sense approach to sit down and
talk with the county. I don't see any
down side."
Sharpe, in a telephone interview
Tuesday, agreed with the mayor that all
levels of government need to cooperate.
But he said the chairman is the elected
official who represents the broader
county as a whole, and should be
included in any discussions.
By having the county chairman present at
meetings with the mayor and the county
administrator, the key players who have
to make decisions for the broader
population of the county will be
present.
"You would have individuals who would be
there when a crisis takes place that
have met before," he said.
"The idea is not to have smaller subsets
together to avoid mistakes."
In the meantime, Iorio has told the
city's police and fire rescue chiefs to
develop more proactive evacuation
procedures. The county plan calls for
HARTline buses to run special routes to
hurricane shelters at no charge to
riders.
But not everyone knows where the bus
stops are or can easily access them.
Iorio said buses should go directly to
the doorsteps of people who need them
most.
Hurricane Katrina showed the
difficulties in getting people to leave
their homes when a storm looms. When
evacuation orders came last year during
Hurricane Charley, most people did not
leave Central Park Village, a public
housing complex at the edge of downtown
Tampa.
Tampa, with its many flood zones, is
likely to be hit particularly hard by a
major storm.
"That's what I had wanted to talk about,
and hopefully we'll have the opportunity
in the future," Iorio said.
County and city officials have clashed
before during emergencies. At one point
last summer, when it seemed Hurricane
Ivan could threaten Tampa, Iorio wanted
to use the county's emergency operations
center media room to address the public.
The city of Tampa has its own emergency
operations center, but it doesn't have a
media room.
Bean turned down Iorio after conferring
with commissioners, who said it was
important for residents to get their
information from one source.
"State law places that responsibility
with the county," commissioner Jan Platt
said at the time. "If every mayor were
out there giving their version of
disaster protocol, it would be chaos.
That request was completely out of
line."
Commissioner Ronda Storms suggested
Iorio was trying to muscle in on some
good television time.
Hoping to quell any bureaucratic
wrestling matches, City Council member
Rose Ferlita requested on Thursday that
someone from Iorio's office research how
the city and county can better cooperate
during emergencies.
Ferlita said there seemed to be
confusion about who was in charge during
last year's hurricane season, with Bean
appearing on television at the county's
emergency operations center and Iorio
finding other ways to reach the public.
Ferlita said the county should take the
lead.
"Sometimes there is leadership in
following," Ferlita said. "I hope that's
the direction the mayor is going in."
That aside, Bean insisted Tuesday that
Hillsborough County sits in a much
better position than New Orleans to
handle a major storm.
For one, there's that county plan to use
school buses and HARTline buses to get
people out of harm's way.
Officials also held a hurricane
preparedness forum for Spanish-speaking
residents this year and currently are
holding similar forums to target
low-income, disadvantaged and elderly
residents.
Unlike in New Orleans, the lower-income
residents in Hillsborough tend to live
on higher ground, while more affluent
residents occupy the evacuation areas
near the waterfront.
No matter what, Bean said, the
preparation will press on.
"There's no plan anywhere I know of that
is 100 percent foolproof," she said.
"But we can always learn from other
people's misfortunes."
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