Hurricanes: Their Nature and Impacts on Society - Climate Science ...

158 HURRICANES: THEIR NATURE AND IMPACf ON SOCIETY
messages are sometimes delivered. A second lesson is a reminder to users of
forecasts that hurricane forecasting is both art <strong>and</strong> science. Hurricane
forecasters have powerful <strong>and</strong> valuable tools <strong>and</strong> techniques at their disposal,
yet knowledge of the future will always remain, to some degree, uncertain.
7.2.2 Evacuation
A FEMA assessment found that evacuation for Hurricane Andrew was
successful, as judged by the relatively low loss of life due to the extreme event.
The generally successful evacuation <strong>and</strong> short-term sheltering of south Florida
residents during Hurricane Andrew can be attributed in part to pre-event
planning <strong>and</strong> preparedness activities of the involved agencies. The Metro Dade
County Emergency Operations Plan <strong>and</strong> the plans developed by local
jurisdictions helped ensure their ability to respond in a timely manner. Considerable
pre-event coordination <strong>and</strong> planning between the State, county, Army
Corps of Engineers, the National Hurricane Center, <strong>and</strong> FEMA contributed to
an underst<strong>and</strong>ing of the warning process, storm modeling, <strong>and</strong> requisite response
actions. (FEMA 1993)
Although the evacuation for Hurricane Andrew was largely judged successful,
there are a number of lessons to be learned from a number of less than
optimal aspects of the evacuation process (USACE/FEMA 1993).
Evacuation orders were based on the hurricane warning that was issued at
8:00 am, Sunday 23 August, for portions of Florida's east coast. Dade County
was ordered evacuated for a Category 3 storm at 8:15 am, about 19.5 hours
prior to the passage of the eye of the storm over south Florida's Atlantic coast
(DOC 1993). One hour later the evacuation order was upgraded to prepare for
a Category 4 hurricane. The evacuation order was disseminated to the public
by police driving through neighborhoods in the evacuation zone using loudspeakers
as well as through the media. In addition to Dade County, St Lucie,
Martin, Palm Beach, Broward, Monroe, Collier, Lee, <strong>and</strong> Charlotte counties
issued evacuation warnings <strong>and</strong> approximately 750 000 people evacuated from
south Florida (FEMA 1993).
Only Monroe County, immediately to the south of Dade County including
the Florida Keys, issued evacuation orders prior to the NHC hurricane
warning. Following the event, some emergency management officials in Dade
County <strong>and</strong> in the Florida Department of Emergency Management criticized
the NHC for waiting until 8:00 am to issue a hurricane warning rather than in
its 5:00 am advisory (DOC 1993). "However, Dade County Emergency
Management Director, Kate Hale, stated that her actions would have been no
different had the warning been issued at 5 am or, for that matter, at 2 am"
(DOC 1993). Thus, at least in Dade County, an additional three or six hours
of warning time would have made no difference in the order to evacuate for