“Wasting money. Haphazard management of supplies. Not enough food or beds. Those are just some of the problems identified by audits of Rick Scott’s emergency management in Florida. While Gov. Scott was busy with self-promotion ahead of Hurricane Irma, his administration was in ‘full scramble mode’ as their failure to plan for disaster was being exposed,” said American Bridge spokesperson Joshua Karp.
Miami Herald: Audit warned Florida’s hurricane response system was ‘ill-prepared’ for disaster
By Mary Ellen Klas, Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau
- “Long before Florida entered the deadliest hurricane season in a decade, auditors at the state’s Division of Emergency Management sent out a warning: the state was ill-prepared for a major disaster.”
- “[I]n audit after audit in recent years, inspectors warned that haphazard management of supplies, poor record keeping and inadequate preparation threatened the state’s ability to respond to a natural disaster.
- “Food and water supplies at the distribution center in Orlando were inadequate.”
- “Auditors found an inadequate stockpile of food, water and cots needed for emergency shelters.”
- “The state has a contract with vendors to supply water and ice to the logistics center in Orlando, but it ‘lacks specific terms requiring delivery within 24 hours.’ A backup contract from a vendor to deliver water and ice “was not renewed.'”
- “Contracts with companies that would supply cots to shelters had expired.”
- “The agreements many trucking companies had signed with the state’s emergency management agency to distribute supplies had lapsed.”
- “[T]he state’s emergency managers didn’t know what they didn’t know.”
- “The report concluded: ‘The division’s ability to respond to disasters may be impaired.'”
- “Emergency shelters in Miami-Dade County were delayed in opening because staff and supplies didn’t show up. In many of them, there were no cots for the elderly and disabled and others awaited delivery of food from the National Guard.”
- “[A]t Gulf Coast High School in Naples on Sept. 10 there were no cots or beds for evacuees, ‘just seats,’ BuzzFeed reported.”
To read the full story, click here.
Published: Oct 9, 2017