TALLAHASSEE, FL (WTXL) -- We’re two weeks into hurricane season, and county officials are staying prepared for potential storms with their annual hurricane exercise.
Thursday's hurricane shelter simulation has been months in the making, complete with various shelter scenarios and complications like problems with running water and deteriorating weather conditions.
The cafeteria at Lincoln High School was set up as an “evacuation shelter,” meaning those to stay here will have the bare necessities...water, snacks, and a sturdy and safe place to ride out the storm.
"The evacuation shelters, they are to get out of the way of the storm," said Sharon Tyler, the Executive Director for the Capital Area Chapter of the American Red Cross. "Once the storm has passed, and there's no danger, then they turn into host shelters."
After the storm, host shelters can provide hot meals, more cots and more amenities. As more and more people are able to leave and head home, shelters will slowly close. The remaining evacuees may have to move from shelter to shelter.
All evacuees Thursday, played by FSU student volunteers, received blankets, but not everyone had a cot to rest on.
The shelter was staffed by The American Red Cross, Leon County Emergency Management officials, and Leon County School staff, all in an effort to better aid in a real situation.
"Following Irma, one of our areas of improvement was better supporting shelter operations, finding ways we could better partner with the Red Cross and Leon County," said Kevin Peters, the Emergency Management Director in Leon County. "We've added the Leon County School system as our shelter partner. They're helping provide staffing at shelters when we open them."
Throughout this exercise, evaluators made notes of how shelter staff worked with evacuees, and how they handled different situations that could arise. Members from the Red Cross, school volunteers, and county officials were put to the test Thursday, as they dealt with a number of mock scenarios, like problems with running water and worsening weather conditions that forced evacuees away from windows and doors.
Although it’s hard to accurately predict what could happen in a real world shelter, its training and exercises like this one that help volunteers stay prepared.
Once the exercise ended, Leon County Emergency Management received their evaluations on how the practice shelter ran, and what may still need to be improved upon in the event of a real life shelter needing to be opened.
The 2017 hurricane season was rough, as many of us remember with Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria causing widespread devastation, with hundreds of volunteers, including those from the Big Bend, helping the victims.
"We had Harvey, and right on Harvey's tails, we had Irma," explains Tyler. "Many of our volunteers were across the country in Texas and southwest Louisiana. The minute Irma started heading our way, we had to pull our volunteers. We locally had to bring volunteers back saying, 'nope, we need you at home because we don't know what we're fixed with.'"
Across the state of Florida, hundreds of shelters opened for those evacuating ahead of Hurricane Irma, to give people a place to stay until they were able to return home.
