State estimates: Much of Florida lacks enough shelters to protect against strong hurricanes

If a deadly hurricane threatens Florida this year, just over a third of the state’s counties would not have adequate shelter space considered safe enough for storms that intensify to a strong Category 4 or an even more dangerous Category 5, according to state estimates.

For decades, Florida emergency management leaders have worked to bolster the amount of shelter space in a state that has weathered some of the most severe storms in the country.

They have come a long way in creating more spaces considered safe and appropriate for the worst storms as building codes have improved and sturdier schools are built. For example, counties in the Panhandle and much of the state’s east coast have enough space in shelters that meet the strictest safety standards.

But estimates by state leaders show 24 counties do not have enough suitable space to meet the shelter demand for people who don’t evacuate before a deadly storm, according to the Statewide Emergency Shelter Plan released in January by the state’s Division of Emergency Management.

Most of those counties are around Tampa Bay, Southwest Florida, parts of Central Florida and South Florida. 

“If we saw a Category 5, we are going to spend all our time evacuating people. All bets are off when we see that kind of storm come in,” Rich Collins, the Sarasota County Emergency Service director, told local officials in a May meeting.

But even after urgent and repeated efforts to evacuate vulnerable areas, many residents stay behind. Even in the Keys, where officials urge evacuation and warn they will not open shelters for hurricanes that reach Category 3 status or more, residents insist on staying on the low-lying islands.

The state report estimates every two years how many residents who don't evacuate are expected to seek public shelter during the most dangerous storm. In the path of a strong hurricane, many areas don’t have enough shelter space described in the January report as meeting the minimum criteria as “ ‘safe,’ ‘suitable’ or ‘appropriate.’ ”

This does not mean storm shelters would topple or collapse. But it does mean that a number of hurricane shelters, which are almost exclusively public school buildings, would be at a higher risk of structural damage, like broken windows and damaged roofs that could endanger evacuees.

To calculate the availability of adequate shelter space in Florida, the state relies on the public shelter design criteria set by the American Red Cross that takes into account a structure's ability to withstand strong winds, storm surge, flooding and vulnerability to hazardous materials.

That standard is a guide state and local emergency management officials have used to identify vulnerabilities in shelter space. While the state report notes it’s “vitally important” to increase the number of these shelters in Florida and lawmakers provide $3 million each year to help, the standard is not a mandate defining what counties should provide during a hurricane.

When a storm reaches the extreme intensity of a strong Category 4 or 5, the consequences can be catastrophic. Trees and power poles topple, structures sustain severe damage, and even emergency shelters, which are meant to act as lifeboats during a storm, are vulnerable to structural damage.

In Sarasota County, for example, most public schools used as hurricane shelters have been modified to improve safety, but they may not be suitable to withstand the force of stronger storms. The state report notes Sarasota needs safer shelter space for 21,286 people who are expected to seek protection during a strong storm.

Under state law, county emergency managers determine which shelters should open based on the ability of individual structures to withstand certain emergencies. History shows that hurricane shelters have not always performed as intended when facing a strong storm.

In 2004, for example, Hurricane Charley’s Category 4 winds caused the partial roof collapse of a DeSoto County shelter, according to a Federal Emergency Management Agency building performance report. The structural damage resulted in one injury and forced the rescue of about 1,200 people as the eye of the storm passed.

That same year, the FEMA report noted, people in Charlotte and Lee counties went to shelters in storm surge inundation zones.

“Luckily, due to the compact size of the hurricane, typical storm surge was not generated and the shelters were not flooded. However, if typical surge had occurred, this shelter would have been flooded,” the report states.

Last year, as the eye of Hurricane Irma approached Lee County, local officials opened 4,300 shelter spaces in Germain Arena, which seats 8,400. As the storm passed over, the arena experienced water leaks through the roof. Authorities monitoring the situation said the structure was stable.

That shelter does not meet Red Cross standards for the safest design, according to the state report.

Lee County Emergency Management Director Lee Mayfield said the state report is not a good representation of shelter operations at the local level, although it is a good roadmap for future funding opportunities to make shelters safer.

In Southwest Florida, some counties struggle to meet the shelter design standard due to the “very conservative approach to storm surge risk” set by the Red Cross, Mayfield says.

Lee County has the state's largest deficit of shelter space that meets the strict safety standards. There are 500 spaces identified as meeting the Red Cross criteria. If a strong storm hit the state, Lee County will have more than 71,000 residents in need of emergency shelter, according to estimates in the state's January report.

“We are working with them to re-evaluate this policy and allow for more exceptions to this policy related specifically to storm surge criteria,” Mayfield said.

But Craig Fugate, the former director of both the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Florida Division of Emergency Management, said the stricter shelter guidelines are created for a reason when considering the worst-case scenario of deadly storms.

“The reality is you don’t put people in shelters that you know won’t perform well, because you don’t get do-overs in these cases,” Fugate said.

Fortunately, Florida has experienced only a few of the most dangerous strong storms in recent decades. It’s been 25 years since Hurricane Andrew made landfall in Florida as a Category 5 in 1992. And since that storm, only two Category 4 hurricanes have hit the state — Charley in 2004 and Irma last year when it landed in the Keys.

But as a changing climate brews monster hurricanes in the Atlantic that have intensified in recent years, Florida faces a growing risk of these storms. This hurricane season, which began June 1, is expected to feature an above-average number of storms.

In Florida, communities rely mostly on schools for shelter. When ordered to evacuate, thousands of people flock to school cafeterias, auditoriums, gymnasiums and classrooms that have been designated as emergency shelters mainly due to their location, open spaces, and access to toilets and dining facilities.

Those buildings are designed to serve as schools, not hurricane shelters, but are modified to meet strict emergency shelter design standards, which can be costly.

“It can also be presumed that public schools will be opened as shelters regardless of the storm’s forecasted intensity and track,” the state report states, “therefore, it is critical that new school facilities be appropriately designed and located to serve the required emergency function.”

While public schools that act as shelters are required to meet stricter storm safety standards for wind and dangerous water than other structures, such as residences, they do not meet the tougher criteria established for hospitals and other facilities that must maintain operations during a storm emergency.

“If schools were built as hurricane shelters, it would be easy, you would just open everything during a storm. But they are not,” Fugate says.

To increase the number of adequate shelters spaces across the state, all new schools must have enhanced hurricane protection areas that would include windborne debris-proof exterior walls and roofs, a standby emergency power system and food distribution facilities. Privately owned charter school facilities are not required to meet these same standards.

Meeting those criteria can be expensive. District school boards report that those safety features can add between 3 percent to 9 percent to construction costs, which the state report says is “not necessarily an insignificant cost” absorbed by state and local agencies.

In the early 2000s, state officials grew concerned that more than half of newly built schools did not include the more costly design standards for a safe shelter space. But in the last 17 years, compliance to those standards has drastically improved, and communities have added nearly half a million shelter spaces that meet the Red Cross criteria.

Some counties in the Panhandle and in the Southeast part of the state didn’t have enough shelter space in 2004 that met the tougher criteria. But construction of new schools changed that.

In Santa Rosa County, for example, more than 6,000 new shelter spaces that met the state’s safety standards were created, and in that same six-year period St. Lucie County bolstered its shelter inventory by over 10,500 spaces, state reports show.