Hurricane Drill Goes Off Without Hitch

BROOKSVILLE - Four weeks ago County Administrator David Hamilton ordered a do-over after software problems disrupted a mock hurricane drill.

Within that span of time, a new interim director was named and the worst of the bugs in the program were worked out.

Their hard work appeared to have paid off Friday morning as Act II of the hurricane drills went off with hardly a hitch.

"The citizens of Hernando County should be assured that we have the people in place" to competently handle an emergency, Hamilton said after the conclusion of the exercise in the Emergency Operations Center on Cortez Boulevard.

In a later interview, Hamilton said he had a "much higher level of comfort" after witnessing the team effort of the assembled officials.

Friday's drill was more concerned with the immediate aftermath of a hurricane's impact versus preparing for an oncoming storm. The scenario involved fictitious Hurricane Herb striking the Levy County coast with the weather in its wake slamming into its southern counties, including Hernando.

The playbook called for an 18-foot tidal surge swamping the coast up to U.S. 19. Floodwaters inundated the Hernando Beach community and Chassahowitzka Wildlife Preserve.

High winds accompanied the Category 3 hurricane with gusts of up to 130 mph along the coast and west side of Hernando County. All 10 shelters in the county were opened and an estimated 700 people poured in. At one point, the roof of the special-needs shelter at West Hernando Middle School collapsed.

Evaluating the extensive damage and providing relief for the affected falls into the hands of many local, state and federal agencies, almost all of which were represented in the EOC.

To organize the multi-layered response, the agencies were lumped into categories and further divided by sectors. For instance, fire chiefs from the county, Spring Hill and Brooksville worked together at the same table as law enforcement. The county department of public works shared spaced with the Florida Department of Transportation.

The glue uniting the response and keeping everyone on the same page was in-house software. At the last drill, users had trouble logging on and using the program.

After the latest drill, "smooth" was the word used by several agencies to describe the program and their overall evaluation of the drill.

Interim Director Cecilia Patella was pleased, saying there were "no significant" problems and the drill went off "without any hiccups."

This latest drill will likely not be the last, as Patella plans to fine tune the next drill based on the feedback from this one.

Hamilton shared her opinion.

"You can never train enough," he said. "Hurricanes are unforgiving."