Weekly comments from Dale Martin

Dale Martin
City Manager
Fernandina Beach
January 5, 2018 12:00 a.m.

The City survived the Great Winter Storm of 2018 this week. The bridge was never closed.

For those of you who have had minimal reason or opportunity to leave Florida or the southern region in general, the chilly weather is a pretty good example of what every March day is like in the Upper Midwest and New England. This is Exhibit A of why so many people abandon the northern states.

The northern states in at least one way, are trying to compete with the southern states by now naming winter storms, perhaps attempting to equivocate winter storms with hurricanes. This naming protocol may have started with national meteorologists as part of the coverage that accompanies severe weather. It was humorous to hear all of the impending doom about to rain down on Connecticut due to Winter Storm Helen- it’s the north, it SNOWS!

As a native-born northerner and additional veteran of several hurricanes (in addition to the recent storms of Matthew and Irma here, Connecticut was significantly impacted by Hurricanes Irene and Sandy during my time in New England), winter storms are more commonly disruptive when compared to the destruction associated with hurricanes. The attempted comparison between these weather phenomena is trivial.

As the Great Winter Storm of 2018 headed our way, questions were raised about the availability of City services. Making use of the information provided by the National Weather Service, County officials, and other emergency management personnel, it was, at the close of business on Tuesday, the prediction that the most severe effects of the weather were going to be felt west of I-95: the most likely effect upon Fernandina Beach was going to be cold rain. With that in mind, I made the decision to continue normal City operations.

My general philosophy is that we serve the public. That service is not limited to bright sunny days, but most in need during times of emergency. City staff is needed to provide those services that residents expect, even during emergencies. While most of you are aware of the visible presence of Police, Fire, and Utilities staff during and in the immediate aftermath of an emergency, remaining City staff plays a critical part in continuing operations: building and planning officials are conducting damage assessments; Fleet and Streets personnel are managing equipment, parts, and supplies; Finance staff is managing unexpected expenses, often of high amounts due to the immediate need of the City; other staff fill supporting roles to manage the overwhelming amount of paperwork and documentation associated with disaster preparation, response, and recovery. We have plenty to do to appropriately manage a disaster or emergency in such a way that we can return the City and its residents back to “normal” as quickly as possible. It is for those reasons that I will be very hesitate to curtail City operations at any time (as long as staff can perform their tasks with minimal, or at least an acceptable, level of risk).

A question that was posed this week was the availability of shelters to accommodate people without otherwise adequate protection from the wind, rain, and cold. As much as City officials, especially City Commissioners, have the desire to provide such a “simple” service, my experience with shelters offers insight into how running a shelter is not as simple as throwing open the doors.

My most extensive experience with shelter operations followed an unusual snowfall in late October, 2011, in Connecticut: the northern half of the state was slammed by approximately twenty-four inches of snow overnight. With the leaves still on the trees (did you know that apparently Connecticut is the most densely-forested state?), power lines were downed and roads were obstructed. My part of the state was without power for seven days. We opened our small senior citizen center as a shelter, primarily for those without access to heat.
Issues that arose were the acceptance of pets (and plenty of people have exotic pets, not simply dogs and cats); the acceptance of medical responsibility; the segregation of sexes; the preparation of food; the security of the site (access was restricted at night- doors locked, no one in or out); criminal background checks for visitors; cleaning- too often, people treat public bathrooms differently than their own; and staffing. Shelter operations are not something that is cobbled together on a whim.

The Red Cross offers training and certification for shelter operations. When properly reviewed and certified, in many cases, it is the Red Cross and its volunteers that provides the appropriate staffing to conduct shelter operations at a certified site. The City does not have any such certified sites and, in the past, has apparently relied upon churches or other nonprofit agencies to provide shelter support during the rare times such support is needed (during the most probable emergencies- hurricanes- the Island is evacuated, foregoing the need for formal shelter operations).

Like you, I look forward to a return to warmer Florida weather.