Area counties prepares for hurricane season

Participants listen to a presentation during a hurricane meeting at the Baldwin County Coliseum on Tuesday.

ROBERTSDALE, Alabama -- About 200 city, county, state, federal and volunteer agency representatives met at the Baldwin County Coliseum to go over plans for the season.
The meeting was intended to allow officials from different agencies to discuss plans and ways to coordinate efforts before a hurricane threatens the Gulf Coast, Shannon Spivey, acting county EMA director, said.
Spivey, who also directs the county call center, was named temporary director after Melvin Stringfellow resigned in March. Stringfellow had been named director after Leigh Anne Ryals asked to be demoted to deputy director in November.
The county has received 68 applications for the position from around the country, Dorsey said Tuesday. He said the commission will begin interviews soon and should have a new director in place by mid-July. Dorsey said Spivey will continue to work with the EMA until August to help the new director during the transition.
"The County Commission is 100 percent committed to having the best EMA in the state and the Gulf Coast," he said. "It will be excellent, but it’s going to take time."
Dorsey said that while the EMA will have a new director when the busiest part of the season starts, the county has the benefit of many volunteers, officials and others with a great deal of hurricane experience.
"The people that are on the ground, the people that make things happen, the people that solve problems, the people that get us back as quickly as possible, are y’all and nothing’s changed about that," he told meeting participants. "You’re still the best that we could ask for that have experience in hurricane management."
Forecasters predict that the 2011 hurricane season will have more storms than average, Jeff Garmon, warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said.
The prediction is that 12 to 18 storms strong enough to be named will form this season. Of those storms, six to 10 will become hurricanes. While those numbers are less than the pre-season forecast for 2010, winds steered most of the storms away from the United States last year, Garmon said.
That trend is not expected to continue in 2011. Garmon said the high-pressure ridge causing a drought in much of the Southeast could push hurricanes toward the area this year.
He said the Weather Service predicts an 80 percent chance that at least one hurricane will hit the Gulf Coast. The odds that two or more storms will hit between Texas and Key West, Fla., are 50-50.
Plans for dealing with a Gulf Coast hurricane include updating the evacuation zones in Baldwin County, Ryals said. She said new zones, based on storm surge predictions compiled in 2009, divide the county into five evacuation areas from the Gulf Coast to north Baldwin County.
Baldwin County has eight public shelters, Scott Wallace, shelter coordinator for the Baldwin County EMA, said. The coliseum is one shelter that can hold up to 1,900 evacuees, while seven schools have also been designated as public shelters.
The Baldwin Rural Area Transportation System has also updated plans to help residents without vehicles to evacuate, Taylor Rider, BRATS director, said. Rider said residents who might require assistance should contact BRATS before a storm enters the Gulf to get on a list for evacuation.
During smaller storms, evacuees will be taken to shelters or other areas. If a severe storm threatens the area and a countywide evacuation is ordered, BRATS buses will take county residents to local collection points and then to a county staging area at Baldwin County High School, Rider said.
From that point in Bay Minette, state-chartered buses will take Baldwin evacuees to Birmingham.
Procedures to allow evacuees to return and to coordinate debris removal after a storm were also discussed.
Grant Brown with the city of Gulf Shores said the municipality has been divided into nine evacuation zones. Zone numbers are on windshield stickers issued to residents.
This year, cars with city evacuation stickers will also be the only vehicles allowed to park without charge at the public beach. Brown said city officials hope the free parking will encourage residents to get the stickers before a storm approaches.
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill has also affected plans for debris removal, Jim Ransom, county environmental director, said. A storm could stir up oil residue from the Gulf floor and bring tarballs and other material in with the surge.
He said sand washed up south of the storm surge line could have to be treated as oil-contaminated debris after a hurricane.