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Background
In 2004 and 2005, Florida experienced an unprecedented level of
tropical storm activity. In
2004, Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne impacted our State.
Hurricanes Dennis, Katrina, Rita and Wilma came ashore in Florida
in 2005. In the short span
of 24 months, millions of Florida residents were impacted, and property
damages ran into the billions of dollars.
In response to these devastating hurricane seasons, state legislators
passed House Bill 1721 and House Bill 1359, which identified enhanced
statewide hurricane evacuation planning and a redefinition of the
coastal high hazard area as state priorities.
In accordance with this legislative direction, the State of
Florida Division of Emergency Management (DEM) obtained grant money
through the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Hazard
Mitigation Grant Program to conduct regional evacuation studies across
the State.
DEM contracted with Florida’s Regional Planning Councils to carry out
the Statewide Regional Evacuation Study Program (SRESP), in close
collaboration with county emergency management agencies.
The Regional Planning Councils facilitated consistent and
integrated mapping and analysis of all-hazards evacuation across
Florida. In South Florida,
this multi-year project resulted in a comprehensive regional evacuation
study that encompasses Miami-Dade, Broward and Monroe counties and is
integrated with similar work completed by the Regional Planning Councils
to the north (Treasure Coast) and west (Southwest Florida).
Inter-agency cooperation and data sharing was a vital part of
ensuring the success of this regional and state initiative.
A regional Technical Advisory Team of county-level agencies was
created, with each county’s Emergency Management Agency acting as the
lead.
Although hurricanes are a prominent concern in the studies, the
framework was established for an “all hazards” analysis in order to
support planning efforts to prepare for other types of evacuations as
well, such as inland flooding or wildfires.
These studies are not policy documents – instead, they are
intended to provide support for future updates to local government
emergency management plans. The
completed study consists of 88 volumes of material (8 for each of the 11
regions across the state).
As part of the statewide study, the DEM managed a separate contract for
the production of updated Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) elevation
data, which was completed for about 28,000 square miles across the
State of Florida. CH2M Hill
was the contractor that collected data for South Florida.
Processing of the LiDAR data and preparation of the data for the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Hurricane
Center (NHC) was
completed in May 2009. New
Sea, Lake and Overland Surge from Hurricanes (SLOSH)
modeling was then completed for two SLOSH basins involved in the update
for South Florida: Biscayne Bay for Miami-Dade and Broward Counties, and
Florida Bay for Monroe County. Additional information about the LiDAR and SLOSH project is
available on the Florida Division of Emergency Management website at www.floridadisaster.org/gis/lidar.
During the preparation of the Study, which began in December
2006, several of the Councils were designated as leads for development
of the methodology for specific sections of the studies.
South Florida Regional Planning Council staff was the lead for
the demographic analysis. In
that role, Council staff developed a set of guidelines for the
collection of data for demographic profiles for each county and each
region, as well as for the collection of small-area data to support the
transportation analysis. In
addition, Council staff prepared demographic data for all 67 counties in
the State of Florida, organized by RPCs, from the 2000 Census (block
group data) and from the 2006 American Community Survey (ACS) (county
data), to support the development of demographic profiles.
Council staff also provided data from the 2000 Census
Transportation Planning Package for 31 counties, with over ten thousand
traffic analysis zones (TAZs), for use in the transportation analysis.
On December 15, 2010, the South Florida Regional Planning Council
convened State and county emergency management and growth management
officials at its Hollywood office to deliver the South Florida component
of the SRESP. With the completion of the
South Florida Regional Evacuation Study, county emergency management
officials will have an opportunity to begin updating county emergency
plans for operational purposes.
The completed study for South Florida consists of eight volumes,
described below, with links for downloading the published documents.
Please note, some of the documents are very large, as they
contain maps and other figures. The ninth volume (Depth Analysis Atlas)
was completed in May 2012.
Volume
1-11 – Technical Data Report
· Front
Matter – Acknowledgements, Table of Contents and Executive
Summary
· Chapter
I Regional Demographic and Land Use Analysis – A systematic
enumeration and Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping of the
dwelling units, population, vehicles and socio-economic characteristics
for the three counties and the region in 2000 and 2006, as well as the
projected dwelling units, population and vehicles within those areas in
the years 2010 and 2015.
Appendix
IA – Broward County
Appendix
IB – Miami-Dade County
Appendix
IC – Monroe County
· Chapter
II Regional Hazards Analysis – A comprehensive analysis of the
potential hazards to the South Florida region, including investigations
of past hurricanes, storm surge, tornadoes, flooding, hazardous sites,
terrorism and nuclear facilities, and a critical facilities inventory.
· Chapter
III Regional Behavioral Analysis Summary – A summary of the
probable tendencies of potential evacuees based on a detailed
residential survey by evacuation zone (Volumes 2 and 3).
Appendix
IIIA – Broward County
Appendix
IIIB – Miami-Dade County
Appendix
IIIC – Monroe County
· Chapter
IV Regional Vulnerability and Population Analysis –
Delineation of the storm tide limits and the evacuation zones,
identification of population-at-risk and evacuation populations, and a
storm surge analysis of critical facilities.
Appendix
IVA – Broward County
Appendix
IVB – Miami-Dade County
Appendix
IVC – Monroe County
· Chapter
V Regional Shelter Analysis – An inventory of existing public
shelters and shelter capacity analysis, and geo-coding of the data to
create a layer of shelter locations.
· Chapter
VI Regional Evacuation Transportation Analysis – Use of an
evacuation transportation model specially developed for the study to
calculate clearance times for five categories of storm, according to
both a baseline set of assumptions and “operational” scenarios
developed by the county emergency management staff.
· Glossary
– A list of terms as defined for use in the study.
Volume
2-11 – Regional Behavioral Analysis (Dr. Earl Jay Baker, Hazards
Management Group) – A set of planning assumptions
developed by Dr. Baker based on the survey results in Volume 3.
These were used to establish the behavioral assumptions used in
the transportation analysis.
Volume
3-11 – Regional Behavioral Survey Report (Kerr and Downs Research)
– A total of 18,800 telephone surveys were completed statewide by
the contractor, Kerr & Downs, in late 2007 and early 2008.
The volume for South Florida includes extensive tabulations of
the questions asked in 400 phone surveys conducted in each county
(Monroe, Miami-Dade and Broward).
Volume
4-11 – Evacuation Transportation Analysis (Wilbur Smith Associates)
– A total of ten baseline scenarios and 21 operational scenarios were
analyzed to generate four clearance times by county: clearance times to
shelter, in-county clearance times, out-of-county clearance times and
regional clearance times. For
each scenario, the total evacuating people and vehicles are calculated
as well.
Volume
5-11 – Evacuation Transportation Supplemental Data Report (Wilbur
Smith Associates) – This
Report contains the model run inputs and outputs and serves as the
source data for Volume 4 – Evacuation Transportation Analysis.
Volume
6-11 – Emergency Management Evacuation Tool Kit – This document includes
locally-selected data pertinent to each of the county emergency
management agencies. It is
meant to be used as a quick reference guide for operations.
Volume
7-11 – Storm Tide Atlas – The
Atlas provides the storm tide boundaries based on the new SLOSH
Analysis, including the boundaries of the Category 1 storm surge, which
can be used by local governments to identify the Coastal High Hazard
Area (CHHA). Click here for
shapefiles showing the Category 1 storm surge for each county. The
Storm Tide Atlas is made up of one book for each county in the region,
with plates for each area that has a potential for storm tide flooding.
Book
1 – Broward County
Book
2 – Miami-Dade County
Book
3 – Monroe County
Volume
8 – Methodology and Support Documentation - This
volume contains the detailed methodology used in
developing various
components of the Statewide Regional Evacuation Study Program (SRESP)
not found elsewhere in the Study. The
development of the methodologies utilized in the Study required
coordination and input from all eleven regional planning councils in
Florida, along with the Division of Emergency Management, Department of
Transportation, Department of Community Affairs, and local county
emergency management teams.
This
volume contains the detailed methodologies for the following SRESP
components:
•
Evacuation Transportation Model Methodology (Chapter II)
•
Demographic and Land Use Analysis Methodology (Chapter III)
•
2007-2010 SRESP Surge Inundation Tool Methodology (Chapter IV)
•
Geodatabase Design and Methodology (Chapter V)
Volume 9-11 - Depth Analysis Atlas - The Atlas maps identify
those areas subject to potential surge flooding, along with the depth of
the water, for each of the five categories of hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson
Hurricane Wind Scale, as determined by the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) numerical storm surge model, Sea, Lake
and Overland Surge from Hurricanes (SLOSH), updated in 2009. Due
to the size of the files, please contact Council staff if you are
interested in obtaining a digital copy of one or more of the books for
the three counties.
For
additional information related to the Statewide Regional Evacuation
Study Program please contact Richard Ogburn (rogburn@sfrpc.com),
or Manny Cela (mcela@sfrpc.com).
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