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Facing questions about one Florida county’s delayed decision to urge its citizens to evacuate before Hurricane Ian, officials are citing “personal responsibility” and arguing many residents wouldn’t have evacuated anyway.
More than half of the more than 100 deaths in Florida related to Hurricane Ian are concentrated in Lee County, which suffered destruction after the hurricane veered before landfall last Wednesday. The county is also the site of a large portion of the over 1,600 rescues undertaken since last week.
Officials in Lee County, unlike those in other neighboring counties, held off issuing a mandatory evacuation order to vulnerable citizens until the forecast changed, about 24 hours before landfall.
Choosing to stay
Now, the theme from the local elected officials is hard to miss.
“It is easy to second guess them but they informed people and most people didn’t want to do it,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, told CNN’s Nadia Romero. “That is just the reality.”
Lee County Board of Commissioners Chairman Cecil Pendergrass told CNN’s Kate Bolduan Monday that people no longer believe government or media reports. He said people in Lee County had been given all the information they needed, but said media coverage of storms that didn’t deliver in recent years has eaten away at public trust.
“People chose to stay,” Pendergrass said. “This is so unfortunate. We’ve seen this throughout the years. Throughout the country. People do not listen to the warnings from the media and the local officials. They made that choice.”
Still searching for survivors
CNN’s Leyla Santiago traveled with a search-and-rescue team in Fort Myers Beach, knocking on doors and looking for survivors.
They talked to Connie Miller, who told Santiago she didn’t feel like she had enough time to evacuate once the order was made and that hotels had been booked.
Now, days later, low on water and food, Miller told Santiago she’s en route to Pennsylvania.
“I’m getting tired, so it’s time to go,” Miller said. “Obviously things were not going to get better. Not for a long time.
‘A sense of complacency’
Mayor Holly Smith of Sanibel Island, which has been cut off from the mainland after its causeway collapsed, said people still had time to get off the island when the county issued a mandatory evacuation order Tuesday, a day before landfall.
“We can’t take a crystal ball and look back,” she told Bolduan. “But what we all did was gave warning and plenty of warning of what we saw was coming. And people can make their own decisions whether or not they’re going to stay or go. The majority of the islanders left the island. Some didn’t. We’ve had decades where we have not had an impact of a storm this great. There is a sense of complacency.”
‘Personal responsibility’
Officials defended the decision to hold on a mandatory evacuation warning and pointed to the fact that the storm shifted before landfall. But by the county’s standing emergency plan even the slim chance of a storm surge over 6 feet should have led to an evacuation of one portion of the county.
“I think the thing we’ve got to think about here is personal responsibility too,” Brian Hamman, Lee County commissioner, told CNN’s John King on Monday.
“Man, I’m a lifelong Floridian, and many of us Floridians heard the evacuation warnings and made the conscious decision to stay. It was based on years of seeing these kinds of storms coming through,” he said.
He complained the national news narrative heading into the storm was focused on Tampa and areas to the north of Lee County, but as CNN’s weather newsletter points out, the 5-day forecast predicted landfall only five miles from the actual location.
This is the government warning you to buy flood insurance
The danger from storms, however, is clearly changing as sea levels rise and the risk of storm surge grows. Every American who lives anywhere near water got a warning about personal responsibility from FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell.
CNN’s Dana Bash asked Criswell on CNN’s “State of the Union” if it’s time to consider not rebuilding in places where you can expect natural disasters to return.
“People need to understand what their potential risk can be, whether it’s along the coast or whether it’s inland and along a riverbed or even in Tornado Alley,” Criswell said. “People need to understand what their risk is.”
Improved building codes will help new construction withstand many disastrous events, she said.
That could mean buying flood insurance even before FEMA includes your address on a flood insurance map.
“I think anybody who lives near water should certainly purchase flood insurance, because it’s your number one tool to help protect your family and your home after the storm,” Criswell said.
Advice too late
Florida has more homes that take part in the National Flood Insurance Program than any other state, but it is still a small fraction – 13% – of homes there, according to CNN’s Chris Isidore.
The disaster could be Florida’s costliest ever. About half the homes in flood plains didn’t have flood insurance, according to the actuarial firm Milliman.
The state’s already dysfunctional insurance market – premiums are the highest in the country and insurers have failed – will make rebuilding that much more difficult for homeowners there.
Congress could decide to give taxpayer money to help rebuild, but that’s not guaranteed.
Florida’s majority-Republican congressional delegation has opposed some disaster funding in recent weeks and Sen. Marco Rubio said Sunday on CNN that he would oppose aid bills focused on his own state if it “smells like pork” with add-ons that aren’t related to the storm.
Rubio also said people on currently inaccessible islands like Sanibel need to think about moving.
Sara McKinley owns a home on Sanibel told CNN on Monday she worries about rebuilding even though she has flood insurance.
“The deductible is so incredibly high and the coverage is so low,” she said. “Just in terms of what the future might be and how to rebuild this is a real worry.”
Sanibel resident Ricky Anderson said he could not move.
“Can we get some help down here?” he said in video included in Romero’s report. “Would that be too much to ask? You look around here and there’s nothing. No power. No phone service. Nothing. I’d just like a little help to get my home back in shape because I have nowhere to go.”
