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PUBLISHER’S CORNER


Destructive Forces & Emergency Preparedness


WRITTEN BY TONY CORPIN | TONY@STNONLINE.COM


Sun, sand and family sounds like a nice vacation, right? That’s how the Corpin Family vacation started out three years ago in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.


T


he fun took a frightening turn when suddenly a Category 4 hurricane changed direction and headed straight for us. Te entire region was caught unprepared for the destruction leveled


by Hurricane Odile, as gale-force winds, heavy rain and flooding decimated the area. In all, 26,000 foreign tourists were stranded on the Baja peninsula at the time of Odile’s landfall.


Te storm landed on us like a pile of bricks. Making matters even scarier, my wife and I had our newly born daughter with us amid water shortages, high tempera- tures, humidity, and mosquitos. A potential 20-hour bus ride to San Diego turned into a 72-hour adventure. Finally, stateside, a friend picked us up and drove us the final two hours to the safety and comfort of home. Tis harrowing experience came flooding back as I


viewed the heart-wrenching images from both Hurricane Harvey and Irma. After Odile hit us, there were reports of structural damage to houses and hotels, downed power lines, fuel shortages, lost cellular service, looting of stores, and diminishing food and water supplies. Te storm surge and heavy rains had caused roads to become impassable. Te situation was deteriorating rapidly and becoming dire. I’m guessing victims of Harvey and Irma felt very similar. As school transportation operations braced for the impact of both catastrophic storms, many districts relied on advance warnings and predictions from the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmo- spheric Administration. Tis gave school districts the opportunity to move their fleets to higher ground and make preparations for local evacuations. But even with all the newest technology, hurricanes can be unpredict- able, changing direction and intensity level with little to no reaction time. Do you use these predictive weather tools at your district? Are there any emergency preparedness plans in


74 School Transportation News • OCTOBER 2017


place at your district? Do they utilize school buses? Kevin Snowden, former state director of student trans-


portation with the Florida Department of Education, told STN that each school district there has a hurricane plan in place, which includes moving school buses and other fleet vehicles to higher ground. Arby Creach, director of transportation for Brevard County Public Schools on the “Space Coast” and current president of the Florida Association for Pupil Transpor- tation, relayed to us that all bus fuel tanks as well as bulk storage tanks were topped off prior to district operations ceasing as Irma prepared to make landfall. Proving these storms can have a mind of their own, Irma ended up first striking the Florida Keys before regrouping and again making landfall on the state’s Gulf Coast. Brevard County emerged from Irma relatively unscathed, but the transportation department was prepared to operate school bus service for as many as 20 school days without replenished fuel supplies in the case of local destruc- tion, enough to sustain operations during an extended recovery period. Recent events should only reinforce the need for emergency preparedness and safety measures. Tere’s no time to rest as hurricane season is active through early November. According to Te Weather Channel, it’s extremely rare if not unprecedented to have such major Category 4 and 5 hurricanes active in the same season and in such close proximity. And at this writing, Hurri- cane Maria was actively moving toward the Caribbean. Safety is something we all need to keep mindful of because when tragedy occurs it is too late to react. Being proactive is always better than being reactive when lives are at stake. 


Tony Corpin, Publisher


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