Built for bottleneck: Is Florida growing too fast to evacuate before monster storms?

[Zorro]

Hurricane Irma mercifully weakened before it swept much of Florida with hurricane-force gusts. But the gridlocked madhouse caused by the largest evacuation in Florida’s history shows just how vulnerable runaway development has made one of the nation’s fastest-growing states, emergency planners say.

“We have to stop and take a deep breath and ask, ‘What are we doing?’ ” said David Paulison, a former Miami-Dade County fire chief brought in to run the Federal Emergency Management Agency by President George W. Bush after the agency’s response to Hurricane Katrina was harshly criticized. “The more people we put here, the worse it’s going to be for evacuation.”

Irma could have been Florida’s worst nightmare: A massive Category 5 hurricane wide enough to hit both of the state’s densely populated coasts, where growth has boomed despite the obvious risks of living on the water in an area regularly walloped by storms. The push for more development — one of Gov. Rick Scott’s central policies in his successful effort to revive Florida’s economy — is elevating the risks to both people and property, said Craig Fugate, FEMA chief under President Barack Obama and the state’s emergency management director under Gov. Jeb Bush.

“We’re trying to evacuate more people over the same infrastructure,” Fugate said. “It’s something Florida has to revisit.”

http://www.bradenton.com/news/weather/hurricane/article173618346.html

[msongs]

1. seems like just certain zones need actual evacuation, like flood zones. other areas with

wind may be bad but not as bad as masses of people out on the roads.

[mcar]

2. This is a real concern

There are only a few ways out, given our state's geography.

A storm similar to Irma but moving faster could have been even more devastating for people trying to evacuate.