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Published on Sunday, August 18, 2002
in the St. Petersburg Times
In six hours, authorities can turn Interstate 4 into a one-way route. The plan works in practice, but some say it's impractical in a storm.
TAMPA -- A hurricane evacuation drill that deployed nearly 300 police, soldiers and other personnel to interchanges along Interstate 4 went well Saturday, state emergency officials said.
But the rehearsal didn't resolve questions about whether the plan would ever be used if the Big One actually rumbled into Tampa Bay.
The plan would turn I-4 into a one-way evacuation route. Authorities say it will be used only if the Gulf Coast is threatened by a storm with winds topping 130 mph.
They ordered Saturday's drill to see how long it would take to deploy 100 members of the Florida National Guard, 125 Florida Highway Patrol troopers and 60 Department of Transportation employees to interchanges between Tampa and Orlando.
The result lived up to predictions: six hours.
But some emergency managers said a successful drill doesn't mean the plan is practical.
Dave Bilodeau, emergency management director in Pinellas County, considers the plan "totally impossible."
He said evacuation plans for monster hurricanes would need to begin 48 hours in advance -- meaning they would have to be under way before the exact track of the storm is known.
Larry Gispert, Hillsborough County's emergency manager, also was skeptical.
"I don't think we'd ever do it," he said. "I don't think we'd ever have enough time."
Gispert said authorities typically have less than 24 hours to make a decision about evacuation and then make it happen. The time it takes to deploy troops and reroute I-4 would eat into that small window of opportunity.
But that doesn't mean Saturday's effort was a waste, he said.
"If it proves to be impractical, we can plan accordingly," Gispert said. "But we've never done it."
Besides, he said, the plan could be used in other scenarios, such as a terrorist attack.
Chris Doyle, spokesman for the state Division of Emergency Management, acknowledges the plan is "kind of a long shot."
He said a report with recommendations would be coming soon, perhaps by the end of the week.
The idea of a one-way evacuation route gathered steam after Hurricane Floyd swirled up Florida's east coast in 1999. More than 3-million people fled, causing massive gridlock.
Other parts of the state already have been through the one-way drill, including along Interstate 10 between Jacksonville and Tallahassee, the Florida Turnpike between Fort Pierce and Orlando and Interstate 75 between Naples and Fort Lauderdale.
On Saturday, tens of thousands of motorists on I-4 saw clumps of highway patrol cars and military-style Humvees parked on the right of way or under bridges. Every few miles, signs flashed: "Please Drive Safely. Exercise in Progress."
"I had no idea what it was," said Carl Mitchell, 29, a prosecutor in the Hillsborough County State Attorney's Office.
Mitchell was on his way to Cocoa, surfboard in the back seat, when he stopped at the 7-Eleven off I-4 in Dover.
Sue Williamson, 34, was on her way to St. Petersburg from Orlando.
"I thought they were speed traps," she said of the extra troopers.
Some people let their imaginations run wild.
Tweety Raybon, the 7-Eleven assistant manager, said some customers were "worried something's wrong, or the president's here."
She quickly set them straight.
If other motorists were uneasy, they didn't tell authorities.
FHP spokesman Lt. Sterling King said dispatchers were instructed to forward any calls about the drills to him.
"I didn't receive the first one," he said.