Disaster Awareness Day was held on June 15 at the Island House. It was hosted by the Towns of Kiawah Island (TOKI) and Seabrook Island (TOSI) and was well attended by homeowners and residents of both islands. Here are some of the most salient points from the all-day event if you weren’t able to attend:

The Mayors of both towns began with reflections on Hurricane Matthew.

Craig Weaver, Mayor of TOKI, acknowledged that most people do not have much experience with hurricanes and since the last big one (Hugo in 1989), the community has increased in size, there are more houses and roadways on the island and many more tourists to plan for. He also noted that we were extremely lucky that Hurricane Matthew hit at low tide and we were not hurt badly. The cost for the Kiawah clean up was a bit over $1m, while Hilton Head was hit at high tide, was badly damaged and the clean up cost was $80m.

Mayor Weaver went on to discuss issues raised and lessons learned from Hurricane Matthew:

• Communicating was a huge challenge. Creating relevant, accurate, factual communication for a diverse, scattered population was difficult. With information that was being sent via social media, TOKI found that speed trumped accuracy in communication.
• Resource limitations were a challenge.
• How do we secure the island during the storm and afterwards, and how to do it for an extended period of time if residents couldn’t get back on the island quickly?
• Clean up – they had contracts in place for the clean up, but there is a conflict between what community needs to do to qualify for FEMA reimbursement and needs of home owners and businesses to get back on the island and start their own clean up.

Ron Ciancio, Mayor of  TOSI explained that TOSI learned how limited our resources were when staff/Council members were not available for their assigned duties in the event of a disaster. The situation moved so quickly from normal operations to OpCon 5 that there wasn’t sufficient time to complete the necessary procedures at each OpCon level.   TOSI learned that law enforcement have some discretion in directing evacuees and did allow them to go to places other than along the evacuation route, due to the low traffic volume as a result of the early evacuation call.

Other observations noted by Mayor Ciancio included the following:

• The TOSI thought that checkpoints would be established to prevent residents from returning but that only applies if the road to the next checkpoint is clear.
• The TOSI learned that the Sheriffs Department will not post an officer at the Seabrook Island gate, but they did patrol our community until they were told to retreat to their shelters.
• It was hard to get accurate information on conditions on the ground, how bad the damage was and when they could expect to return.
• Mayor Ciancio agreed that there needs to have better communication between TOSI, the Club and SIPOA and information needs to be shared on a real time basis. They need to have effective communications plans with Charleston County and are getting training on that. They learned that they need to communicate better with evacuated residents. During Hurricane Matthew TOSI used the SIPOA e-blast and Tidelines, and they are now are able to e-mail residents directly. He also said they would make more effective use of the Code RED Twitter feed, their 888 Emergency number, and the TOSI website to get information out to the Seabrook Island population.

Continue reading →