Manatee County staff and residents discuss hazard mitigation

Hurricanes are undoubtedly the biggest threat to citizens and property in Manatee County, but the devastating storms are far from the only threat. 

Manatee County staff members identified and assessed 33 other hazards, too. Now, the Public Safety Department and the Division of Emergency Management are asking the community to participate in the Local Mitigation Strategy Planning Meetings. 

The first meeting was held at the Manatee County Emergency Operations Center on June 26. The next meeting will be held in September. A date will be set as it gets closer. The county calendar can be viewed at MyManatee.org/news___events/county_calendar. 

The meetings are a chance for citizens to convey needs and concerns that are countywide or specific to their own communities. 

Myakka City resident Carol Felts, who is running for the District 1 commission seat, asked staff members to be more proactive in East County.  

“A lot of our hurricane preparedness is geared to shorelines and places like that, but rural areas pose a little bit of a different situation.” Felts said. “We have to address livestock issues. We lost about 250 (cows) at Dakin Dairy (during Hurricane Ian).”

Manatee County resident Glen Gibellina asked staff members to address evacuation traffic jams by taking a closer look at the buildings themselves, not only where they’re located, before issuing evacuation orders. 

“(Staff) has done no analysis of the current buildings,” Gibellina said. “If you look on Longboat, those condos are pretty bulletproof. They look like a garage, but they have breakout walls, so the water (breaks through and) flows in and out.”

Director of Public Safety Jodie Fiske listened at the meeting. She agreed with Gibellina that evacuations could run smoother, but stands by an old adage. 

“Run from the water; hide from the wind — that messaging will always be consistent in any emergency management agency,” Fiske said. “But go tens of miles to evacuate. Don’t go hundreds. Plan to stay at a friend’s house. You don’t have to jam pack the highways.”

Risk assessment

Before the public could weigh in, the staff gave a presentation on the 2024 Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment.

Every five years, staff members gather data and input from law enforcement, EMS and other local, state and federal agencies to rank natural, technological and human-caused threats to assess which pose the biggest risks to the county. 

The top five threats identified in the 2024 report are hurricanes, floods, terrorist acts, cyber incidents and epidemics.

The more vulnerable the county is to the threat, the higher it ranks. The list changes based on events, but also on what mitigation tactics the county has taken in the prior five years.

Harmful algae blooms were 10th on the list in 2019, but have dropped to 15 this year. 

“It was 2018 when we had a really bad (red tide bloom),” Chief of Emergency Management Matthew Myers said. “We figured out some assets that we could use to help mitigate some of the effects.”

Drones were used to monitor the status of the bloom and prioritize areas for response efforts, and two watercrafts were purchased to remove fishkill and other biomass out of the water before it reaches the shore.  

Epidemics were down in the No. 8 spot in 2019, but Myers said the COVID pandemic pushed it up a few spots to No. 5 this year.

“We realized how big (an epidemic) could be,” Myers said. 

The rankings show cyber threats are being viewed through the same lens. The threat of cyber incidents was No. 25 on the list of threats in 2019. This year, it’s in the No. 4 spot. Staff wrote in the report that there were no previous occurrences, but a significant cyber incident impacting key assets could cause “harm, destruction, and cascading impacts.”

“We want people to understand that we are looking at these risks on a regular basis,” Myers said. 

The mitigation strategy plan will be updated and finalized by September 2025.