Get Ready

‘REBUILD 850’: Former Speakers Will Weatherford, Allan Bense spearhead North Florida recovery project

November 2, 2018 by NHSI

Communities affected by Hurricane Michael will in part rely on the goodwill of others to bounce back to normalcy.

And that’s why a coalition of influential names and organizations is making sure that the current and impending issues facing the Big Bend and Panhandle counties affected most by the powerful Category 4 storm remain in the fore.

During a public conference on Thursday at Tallahassee-based Sachs Media Group, members of the newly formed REBUILD 850 Initiative unveiled their plan to enlist private businesses, citizens and philanthropists to the aid of the 12 Florida counties that suffered extensive setbacks when the storm swept through North Florida on Oct. 10.

The cooperative, a brainchild of former Republican Florida House Speakers Will Weatherfordand Allan Bense, challenges other entities and people to “donate, volunteer, visit and invest” in the affected region.

“We can’t wait for the politics to work itself out,” Weatherford said. “There is enough need today that people need to act. We can’t wait for the politicians — who we have respect for and I was one of — (but) we can’t wait for the Legislature. I think the business community needs to step up and help out the folks that are suffering.”

In just a short time, Bense and Weatherford with the aid of Sachs Media corralled together a group of organizations each diverse in their own mission, equipping the effort with representatives who will leverage their interests and skills in order to accomplish the multi-pronged goal.

Volunteer Florida, for example, administers the Florida Disaster Fund, to which the proceeds of the Initiative will funnel. Other partners in 850 REBUILD include the Florida Chamber and Florida Chamber Foundation; the Florida League of Cities; the Florida Association of Counties; the Florida Association of District School Superintendents; United Way of Florida; the American Red Cross; Get Ready, Florida! and FAIR Foundation; and the Florida Press Association.

Also on tap is Visit Florida, the state’s tourism-marketing agency, which is undertaking an $8.9 million campaign to combat perceptions that all of Florida has been impacted by Michael and by red-tide outbreaks in Southeast and Southwest Florida. Also expected to play a role is Triumph Gulf Coast, which was set up by the state Legislature to direct settlement money from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster into regional-economic development projects in eight Northwest Florida counties.

The group’s launch comes during the heat of the 2018 midterm election. But that’s intentional.

With people focused on Tuesday’s elections and the hurricane not causing a crisis outside the Panhandle, Weatherford said attention even in Florida has already started to shift away from the impacts of the Oct. 10 storm.

Awareness of Michael’s lasting effects, according to Bense, is dependent on the news cycle. But when “other news dominates the headlines,” things like donations can “ebb.”

“As time ticks away and the election gets closer, I think we might be falling off of people’s radar screen in terms of needs,” Bense, who kicked off the fundraising component of the initiative with a $25,000 contribution, said.

“This effort, REBUILD 850, is about making sure the Panhandle is not forgotten,” added Weatherford, who’s married to Bense’s daughter Courtney.

Weatherford commended Gov. Rick Scott — who had for a period suspended his campaign for the U.S. Senate to focus on relief — for his post-Michael efforts.

Still, “we can’t just rely on government to solve this problem,” Weatherford said.

Businesses and citizens “have to step up to bring the relief,” added Weatherford, adding that after Election Day, politicians too can and should chip in their leftover campaign funds.

“We’re encouraging them as an act of leadership to step out, take those leftover campaign funds [and] donate them to this effort,” said Weatherford.

Both federal and state agencies aren’t going to ease recovery efforts, said Bense, who put up $25,000 to get the project rolling.

“But we need to make sure the leaders, businesses and individuals throughout Florida help us because we’re hurting right now,” he said.

To help get the word out, former Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator CraigFugate will host a televised special encouraging Floridians to contribute the effort.

Ron Sachs, founder and CEO of Sachs Media Group, said he expects to place the half-hour program on a network station in every one of Florida’s 10 media markets between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

With respect to legislative concerns, the consensus among the coalition — which recruited Tallahassee Democratic state lawmakers Sen. Bill Montford and Rep. Loranne Ausley — is that it may be too early to tell what’s needed.

That sentiment is affirmed by others in the Legislature as well. Incoming legislative leaders, Republican Sen. Bill Galvano and Rep. Jose Oliva, have indicated that they’re ready to launch a special session to address the effects of Michael, if needed. But the damage still is unfolding, so bringing lawmakers back to Tallahassee might be premature.

Bense, whose tenure as Speaker overlapped the famed 2004-2005 hurricane seasons, said he expects similar problems to face the Legislature when it does reconvene in March for the 2019 Session.

Asked whether he thinks lawmakers should fund the Hurricane Housing Recovery Program (HHRP), an optional affordable housing carve out that can be funded when Floridians are displaced by hurricanes, Bense responded affirmatively.

“My instincts tell me leadership will take that up from a funding perspective,” Bense said. “I sure hope so.”

In the 2018 Legislative Session, legislative leaders opted not to fund HHRP citing a budget shortfall created by the $400 million school safety bill passed after the Feb. 14 Parkland school shooting.

Bense also said he hopes the Legislature will continue to fund the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund, a “hard decision” that faced lawmakers in the 2006 Legislative Session following the 2005 Hurricane Wilma.

The News Service of Florida contributed to this post.

Source: http://floridapolitics.com/archives/279800-rebuild-850-former-speakers-will-weatherford-allan-bense-spearhead-north-florida-recovery-project

Floridians lack awareness of hurricane risks from garage doors, generators, insurance deductibles

September 14, 2018 by NHSI

As three hurricanes plow across the Atlantic, a poll released Monday found significant gaps in Floridians’ knowledge about how to get safely through hurricane season.

Few knew that a poorly secured garage door could allow the storm to penetrate their homes. A lower number than in 2017 knew that a badly placed generator could kill their family with carbon monoxide gas. And few knew that the possession of homeowners insurance wouldn’t protect them from a severe financial hit after the storm.

“We’re not going to stop the hurricanes,” said Craig Fugate, former administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and former Florida emergency management director, speaking on a telephone news conference to release the poll.

“The way we change the outcomes is to make sure we have insurance to protect our homes and our valuables against losses and we take steps to fortify our homes before storms threaten, that we have our supplies, both for our pets and for our families, and if we’re in an evacuation zone, we don’t hesitate. We head the evacuation.”

— Garage doors: Just 8 percent mentioned garage doors when asked about the most vulnerable parts of their home.

“I think people get the roofs and the windows and the shuttering, but they’re leaving one part of their house vulnerable, and that’s garage doors,” Fugate said. “If you get a breach of those doors, or a breach anywhere in the house, that is going to lead to the most likely devastation of the home. …It’s something that people need to fortify.”

— Insurance: Here’s a scary fact about insurance — the typical hurricane deductible is $5,000. Didn’t know that? Neither did 85 percent of the people polled.

“And a hurricane deductible is one of the largest short-term financial obligations following a disaster than any of us face,” said Guy McClurkan, executive director of the FAIR Foundation, an organization that promotes insurance reform. “There’s a really huge financial risk in just being able to meet post-storm financial obligations in order to protect your home.”

— Generators: Although these are a well-known hazard, 39 percent wrongly believed that it was safe to place a generator in a room with an open window, a crawl space, balcony, garage or attic. That’s an increase from 32 percent last year, and it shows awareness may be fading that portable generators generate lethal gases.

“We thought we had the message out — don’t put a generator in your house or next to your house or in your carport or in your garage,” Fugate said. “But our survey says those numbers are going back up. We’re seeing an increase of people who don’t understand the risk of generators. It’s a potentially fatal mistake to run a generator in an enclosed space or where the exhaust can get into a home.”

— Evacuation: Eighteen percent said they would refuse to evacuate, even if a Category 3 or 4 hurricane was predicted to hit within 10 miles of their home. If the storm were “merely” a Category 1 or 2 hurricane, the number that would not evacuate climbed to 58 percent.

— Pets: People put their pets ahead of a lot of other things. The poll found the number of people who assembled pet supplies “well in advance” to be 80 percent, compared with 61 percent for supplies of food, 60 percent for window protection and 59 percent for water supplies.

“We did get some good news in the survey,” Fugate said. “I think the pets are going to be OK.”

Source: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/weather/hurricane/fl-ne-hurricane-poll-20180910-story.html

After hurricane, would you prefer AC or a charged cellphone? Survey answer may surprise you

June 15, 2018 by NHSI

In the hot and dirty days after a hurricane sweeps through Florida, which conveniences would be most important to you?

According to a new hurricane preparedness survey commissioned by the FAIR Foundation, internet access would be one of the most-missed amenities.

Asked to choose which of two conveniences they would prefer in the four days after a hurricane, 83 percent of respondents chose web access to cable TV access, which was preferred by 17 percent. Sorry, CNN and Fox News. Apparently most respondents would rather surf the web while using rabbit ears to watch local TV.

The strength of preference for internet access was tops among millennials (92 percent), but also strong among people ages 35 to 54 (88 percent) and 55 and older (74 percent).

“I think it’s an access to information issue,” said Karen Cyphers, research director for Sachs Media Group, which conducted the survey for the FAIR Foundation and the Get Ready, Florida! hurricane preparedness campaign. “People feel they’ll get the best access to information online than from cable TV.”

Survey results were compiled from 1,000 responses to questions mailed to a random sample of registered Florida voters between June 1-4 with a margin of error of +/- 3 percent at the 95 percent confidence level, according to the surveyors. Results are representative of Florida voters in terms of age, race, gender and political party.

Meanwhile, about one in four respondents said they would choose a fully charged cellphone over saving their perishable food in a working refrigerator or the comfort and safety of air conditioning. “I don’t think we would have seen that 20 years ago,” Cyphers said.

Air conditioning was more important than cellphones to males than females. Eighty percent of males chose AC compared with 76 percent of females.

Meanwhile, the survey found 76 percent of Floridians are “very” or “somewhat” concerned about potential hurricanes this season compared with 5 percent who were “not at all” concerned.

Broken down by ethnicity, 42 percent of black respondents and 44 percent of Hispanic respondents said they were “very concerned” compared with 22 percent of white respondents.

Among homeowners, 70 percent have either reviewed or updated their homeowner’s insurance policy since last hurricane season. That’s not good enough, said Guy McClurkan, executive director of the FAIR Foundation, a spinoff organization of the Fort Lauderdale-based insurance watchdog group, Florida Association for Insurance Reform.

“The 2018 hurricane season is already off to a fast start,” McClurkan was quoted as saying in a news release announcing the survey results, “so it’s crucial that everyone review their family’s safety and evacuation plans, check their insurance coverage and consider purchasing separate flood insurance, since floods aren’t covered by a typical homeowners policy.”

Source: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/fl-bz-post-cane-internet-importance-survey-20180614-story.html