WE CAN ALL AGREE that Hurricane Matthew could have been much worse, despite the massive damage to property and the tragic loss of one Isle of Hope resident’s life when a tree crushed his house as he lay sleeping alongside his dog.
We can all agree that we should be grateful for what we do have, and for the sense of resilient community we all experienced, each in our own ways.
We can all agree that first responders — police, firefighters, utility crews, National Guard, rank and file City and County workers — all did exemplary, even heroic jobs maintaining and restoring order and services lost in Matthew’s wake.
That said: We can also agree that your local and state government — as distinguished from the highly professional first responders themselves — failed to handle their end of things in your best interest.
The core issue with local government and emergency management wasn’t poor intentions or poor resources, it was nearly catastrophically poor coordination and communication, from the top in Atlanta and in Savannah, along with a nearly fatal dose of indecisiveness.
It seems so long ago now, but it began with the first Chatham Emergency Management Agency (CEMA) press conference last Wednesday, an embarrassingly amateurish, almost lackadaisical affair which did nothing to help public confidence at a crucial time.
While Gov. Nikki Haley and other South Carolina officials already had their emergency management plan in gear with a mandatory evacuation underway, Chatham County Commission Chairman Al Scott said he saw no reason to call for an evacuation of all of Chatham County, and only that the islands were under a voluntary evacuation for the next morning.
(Tybee Mayor Jason Buelterman, by far the most solidly capable local elected official throughout this ordeal, had already called for the voluntary evacuation of Tybee Island the afternoon before).
Almost immediately, County Commissioner Dean Kicklighter let it be known via social media that he disagreed strongly with Chairman Scott’s decision, and felt not only that a countywide voluntary evacuation should be called for, but that a mandatory evacuation was almost certainly going to have to happen, and that time was of the essence.
Kicklighter was vindicated the next morning, when CEMA changed the islands evacuation to mandatory, followed about 30 minutes later by the Governor’s call for mandatory evacuation of the entire County.
This would be the pattern for the next week: Local authorities would say one thing, and hours or even minutes later either contradict themselves, or the Governor’s office would contradict them, or both.
And where was Mayor Eddie DeLoach? Until right before the storm hit, he was on a trip with the Savannah Economic Development Authority to — wait for it — Ireland! Can’t make this up, folks.
The message CEMA and Chatham County government leadership — as distinguished from rank-and-file police, firemen, utility crews and other first responders, who all performed admirably — sent from the very beginning was, “We’re in charge, but we’re winging it. Trust us anyway.”
CEMA’s issues with providing useful public information were apparent from the beginning. At one point as Matthew was threatening South Florida, they tweeted that Savannah wasn’t under any Hurricane Watches or Warnings — which would have been impossible anyway, because Watches and Warnings aren’t even called until 48 and 36 hours away, respectively.
In the storm’s aftermath, a technically correct but extremely vaguely worded tweet from CEMA started a panic about everyone having to boil water. (The issue really affected a small group of customers of a private company.)
The panic became so prevalent that Chatham County had to issue a press release talking about “rumors” — which had begun with CEMA itself!
This isn’t to put all the blame on the locals. In marked and painful contrast to Gov. Haley’s five-star performance, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal was nearly a no-show for Hurricane Matthew.
I strongly suspect that Deal’s low public profile reflected a general lack of urgency. Local officials were likely operating in a vacuum. I honestly am not sure how I would have handled the same difficult situation.
But it is clear that what happened here was well beneath standards set by other emergency management agencies up and down Matthew’s path.
After the mandatory evacuation became reality and Chatham County struggled to keep up, by Thursday night the tone changed from apathetic to apocalyptic.
Alderman Van Johnson said, “This is unlike anything we’ve ever seen in our lifetime… Get your stuff and get out of town. Even if you survive the storm…. our utilities might be disturbed, our water system might be compromised. This could be a very different place.”
As evacuees painfully waited news of the hurricane’s impact Friday night — and saw Facebook photos of the horrific damage that Saturday morning — they were in for more surprises.
Amid the eleventh hour, lectures about how the storm was really bad after all and everyone had to get the hell out of Dodge, officials neglected to tell evacuees some very key information:
Namely, that all roads back home would be blocked by State Troopers demanding ID, and it might be many days before reentry was allowed.
CEMA denied “rumors” that evacuees would need to show a utility bill in addition to personal ID to qualify for reentry, but the “rumors” had originated right on their own website.
And thus the oldest of lessons was proven true again: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.
Those who were prudent were rewarded by being told to continue being prudent and stay away from their property indefinitely, while those who disregarded the mandatory evacuation order faced no penalty other than from Mother Nature herself, and were free to protect their property and begin cleaning up immediately.
Indeed, one of the clearest messages was to potential looters: Don’t worry, we’ll keep the owners of all those empty houses away as long as we can.
The mixed messages continued. At 10:30 a.m. Sunday, CEMA said residents could re-enter at 5 p.m. but only with proper ID. But the countywide curfew began at 10 p.m., so you better be in your home and off the street in that five-hour window.
During that press conference, Chairman Scott directly contradicted what CEMA said literally moments earlier about needing ID.
Scott rambled about people being “free to go to Tybee and see the surf,” though Tybee Mayor Jason Buelterman, standing right next to him, had just said he didn’t know when the bridges to Tybee would be reopened.
(Mayor Buelterman is one of the few local leaders to get an A+ grade. He and S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley set the standard, with the Savannah/Chatham County School Board’s prescient early decision to cancel school all week also proving particularly wise.)
Evacuees saw the confusing reentry information on social media along with posts from local bars, coffee shops, and tourist spots saying they had power and were open for business.
You could get a daiquiri at Wet Willie’s in City Market. The contrast seemed stark.
Not to worry, because 90 minutes later CEMA contradicted itself once again, completely throwing away the reentry protocol and saying at 5 p.m. everyone — residents, tourists, whoever — was free to reenter.
The real shame of all this is the possibility that dramatically fewer people will evacuate next time due to the hard lessons learned this time around, when “mandatory” clearly meant nothing of the kind and the folks in charge flew by the seat of their pants.
The “mandatory” thing right now is to demand a full reform of CEMA, for these three reasons:
1) To get CEMA out from under the whims of grandstanding local elected officials, 2) To drastically upgrade CEMA’s public information presence, and 3) To streamline CEMA’s communication with decisionmakers at the state level.
These are your lives and your taxpayer dollars at risk, and it’s never wrong or inappropriate to demand change when needed.
Yes, things could certainly have been worse. But they could have been a hell of a lot better, too. And you deserve better.
This article appears in Oct 12-18, 2016.
We decided not to evacuate and although it was scary, watching the news conferences after the storm made us think we made the right decision.
All the indecisiveness led to a decision not to evacuate our hospitals. That could have been disastrous.
Any able-bodied petson2 who relies on state or local government for their health and welfare deserves what they get.
Tybee Island is blessed to have Jason as mayor. I was home 2 days after Matthew hit with water power and cable. Amazing! Thanks for looking out for us!
I disagree and feel CEMA did a great job. There is a lot of bias in this editorial. Remember, you can’t legislate or mandate common sense. The right call was made by CEMA in plenty of time to give residents the opportunity to evacuate. This typically occurs in a staged fashion, and traffic was not a huge issue. Guidelines for re-entry were clear in their communications with the public, and this was allowed once they had the information that the county was safe. Thanks for your hard work, CEMA.
Damn if you do… Damn if you don’t… We were basically left with too much incertainty… for certain there was a lack of explaining to people that certain parts of the city and the islands were more at risk than others… The Historic District itself was safe from floods which is a big deal… With houses that have survived centuries because they were really well built, the Historic District was heaven to many… Therefore, there should not have been a mandatory evacuation of the Historic District… Of course, we have lots of trees and going through a Cat 2 is going to take many of them down especially if they are not well taken care of with regular trimming or too old to stand… Therefore, those of us who decided to stay behind had to realize we were going to be inconvenienced for a while and all should have prepared accordingly… I made sure we did at our home, starting a week before the storm arrived. Not everybody is lucky enough to live in the Historic District and they had to decide what their best odds would be. Low lying areas should always evacuate – no one needs to drown. People were given information by the Weather experts, we read about it coming our way, saw what it did in the Carribean – it actually became the responsibility of each individual to make the decisions they believe was best for them. Now, it is cleanup time. Some of us would like to get rid of some politicians and blame them for the mess if we could. However, the fact is we are all in it together. Don’t forget they were voted in by somebody. We don’t need a mayor or commissioner telling us we need to leave if we have some common sense. Take charge of your life! Stop depending on being told what to do. In the end, we have nobody else than ourselves to blame for the decisions we make every day. Just make the best decisions you can on a daily basis and enjoy the benefits therein.
Andree Patterson
As someone who evacuated I found it very frustrating to find reliable information as to what was going on. CEMA needs to better at communicating information to the people and having an up to date website. Our politicians need to be mindful of their words, and they both need to be on the same page. Having to spend 20 mins to research information on the internet by checking CEMA’s site, news reports and Facebook to figure out what was actually happening, and the most current correct information added unnecessary stress to an already stressful situation. Not to mention the panic one can easily cause with poorly worded statement like “We don’t know when people will be let back in. It could be days.’ I get that they have to asses the situation but as those in charge their statements should bring us confidence not fear. How hard would it have been to relay the same information but in a manner befitting your profession, and position.
I did what I was instructed, when I was instructed, left and returned no problem whatsoever, one loss of life, and we are turning this into a political problem, sad! One loss of life, and you think it could get better? So tired of hearing all the complaining, we are a sad bunch of people if we think it could have turned out any better. So Grateful of how everything was handled, how about an article praising our 1st responders, and linesmen, wasted article complaining about politics! Always always always about politics! He did this, she did that, they didn’t do this, well whatever they did or didn’t do, it worked out pretty good! We sound like middle school kids running for class president, three days after Matthew this is what you found time to write about! You have lots to do with your time!
I agree with this- Savannah was unprepared however I have been pleasantly surprised at the “after the storm” not sure if local officials handled or had part of this but it has gone smoothly in my opinion. But as someone who did not stay around and wait to be told to leave, many did and it was handled poorly at best. I feel as though Savannah leaders were “absent”. The governor was “absent” until the last dire moment. SMH- it IS Slovannah. however, I love my city and will do whatever I can to help it rebuild. Being out of town during the storm, I turned to The Weather Channel, CNN and FOX and I swear, up until an hour before the storm hit, they were constantly reporting on Jax or Charleston? WHY- I was told because “no one” at the official level was reporting to or in touch with TWC and they had one reporter who stayed on the River street scene. And while being in a slouch motel with my pets- on Saturday all I heard via social media(not the officials in charge) nor through CEMA was that they “officials” were saying they did not know when we could come back. To hell with that as looting was definitely happening AND for those away from their property for days- we wanted to come home with seemingly no idea when, and last minute we were told we could come home AFTER I booked another night in roach motel! I realize safety is an issue when returning to a city ravaged by natural disaster, but to not have some plan or idea of when people could return, and then local officials being overridden by the governor on returning home, it was confusing to say the least. I have friends in cities up and down the coast who have experience hurricanes and evacuations and NEVER did they evacuate and not know when they could re-enter the city- what a mess! And you are correct, should we experience another mandatory evacuation, I do think less people will evacuate- which is terrible. Even ONE life lost is too many!!! I will always leave when threatened by a hurricane and no one has to tell me to go- but many CANNOT leave unless MANDATORY due to jobs etc…and 24 hours is NOT enough notice- the hotels/motels/campsites etc close to Savannah were booked solid starting Tuesday before the storm. I called so many and ended up in a roach motel in Albany- especially if you have pets. I started planning on Tuesday to leave and that was even a little a late. So I have a new plan and hopefully many other residents in Chatham have learned, put together and will have a plan to leave next time. And hopefully local officials and CEMA will learn from this debacle.
In any situation like this one, I find that government acts in the worst case scenario with very little. If any plan for reentry and recovery. I stayed and I had people calling asking for information because it wasn’t readily available.
After just closing on a house in Savannah on Sept 30, and while packing to move from Phoenix I kept a close eye on the hurricane. Media sources kept changing the path of Matthew and made it hard to predict his path. At one point, I thought he was going to make landfall and cross Florida? I can see where it would have been hard for local officials to make evacuation plans from inconsistent forecasts. Would he be further out from Tybee and less affect on the coastal areas.They did not know. I do not know anything about these “officials” so not making any political judgements about them. I DID learn from local Facebook posts from the “officials” that Tybee was voluntary and then mandatory and finally mandatory for all of Chatham County. I learned this more than 48 hours prior to his arrival. A Facebook group I joined was intended for those staying behind and not evacuating helped a great deal. Their advice, prior, during, and post Matthew was amazing. I saw people asking for help and receiving it; babysitter needed..you got it. “I have time on my hands SCAD is closed this week who needs help?” “Come over, I have power and food, recharge your phone here”, so many people wanting to volunteer and offer their chainsaw. I saw someone had breast milk available. In my case, a stranger offered to check on my new home and provided pictures on how it was. We got learn that are collective efforts are far better than governments actions. Going forward lets create some proactive approaches during and after times of threat. Some ideas may include a central help center: individual needs, volunteer center, donation center, and any other needs. I am in awe how you are coming together as a community and look forward to being being a vocal citizen. Thank you Savannah for being a strong community. Continue to pay it forward folks!
Brian Gosnell
a strong community.
No one knew what was going to happen – not even the weather people!!! And even if you have a mandatory evacuation in place you still cannot force people to leave!!! I agree a lot of biased information in this article!!! I think CEMA did a fine job!!! Did they learn some lessons – more than likely!!! But until you walk in someone else’s shoes & have all these lives in your hands you shouldn’t be pointing fingers!!!
Wow, talk about armchair quarterbacking! I mean, how dare the mayor schedule a trip to Ireland months ahead when he KNEW a hurricane was coming! Next time we will all just tune in to this knucklehead and figure out exactly what to do, because he will obviously have all the answers!
How many times have you put a county wide plan to evacuate and have infrastructure to maintain. So many people want to be experts and point the finger(even commissioners). Well I’ve been involved with the ksjor ones Hugo, Andrew, and Katrina. I’ve also been involved in the small ones. Tou always learn tweek and make better. There is no perfect script. FL, GA,, and SC did good/very good
People it’s note from the editor. Meaning it will be the editor’s personal opinion on the situation. Secondly, could they have done a worse job, yes. Was it horrible, no. But as the main point of contact it is there job to relay information and they need to improve that. There is nothing wrong with stating that fact. Especially when they are responsible for relaying such pertinent information.
I swear u think people have crystal a crystal ball. Next time see if u can go sit by gig so he can tell u every little thing. You know sometimes common sense goes a long way
What you are describing did not only happen in Chatham county. Glynn County Officials said on Sunday residents could come home and all was clear only to have Georgia State Patrol blocking 95 entry into Glynn County and turning people away. Families were being separated because husbands would cross 95 to see if they could find food, water etc only to be told they could not re-enter. Communication was totally broken down here also and no one could figure out who could actually make the call that Glynn County residents could come home. Not only did this happen but The Brunswick News reported that more than 30 burglaries were committed but can not give an assessment of just how many. I applaud not only Nikki Haley on her quick decision on evacuations but also Rick Scott on his decision for their evacuations. Truth of the matter is Nathan Deal messed up with this one.
I honestly don’t understand what your beef is with CEMA. If you as an individual feel like you should evacuate then by all means, evacuate. Why do you need the officials to tell you what to do? You need to do what is in your best interest regardless of what they say or when they say it. The curfew is set in place for your safety as well as others, and so was the monitoring of returning. Its really easy to point fingers, and hindsight is 20/20. If you had been in their shoes, do you honestly think you would have done a better job? I would agree that SC Gov. Haley did an excellent job of handling the situation, but CEMA did what they could with the cards they were dealt. It is unnecessary to criticize them to this extent without having a full understanding of how to handle an unpredictable act of God such as a Hurricane. They ultimately made the call for mandatory evacuation with enough time for people to get out if they wanted to. With the damage done to Savannah, it is truly a miracle that we came away from it with only one loss of life. There is a long road to regathering and rebuilding, but it is unfair to pass such harsh judgement on CEMA for the way they handled this situation. I am thankful for the way that they handled it because despite the confusion that naturally arises during such a difficult situation, they ultimately made the hard decisions. They sacrificed themselves, their time, and the ability to be with their loved ones during a life threatening situations, for our community–for YOUR community. Its really important to learn respect, and most of all to learn how to be grateful. Just some food for thought.
Too much gratefulness doesn’t inspire people to create a better system of management. It’s healthy to take criticism and fix what needs fixing.
This could have been a Katrina. People could have died. Seriously, Jesus showed up and protected us. Otherwise, this could have been much worse.
I am so sad to see this negative reporting in the midst of people valiantly trying to be positive.
I respectfully disagree with this article. I was very impressed with how Savannah handled a disaster of this magnitude. The one thing I agree with him on is that Governor Deal was not present enough. Otherwise, I think the timing was the best it could have been – they had to see which way the storm was turning before issuing an evacuation order. When it was clear the storm was headed our way for sure, they issued the order in plenty of time for people to get out. They had procedures set up, they had communication channels set up (in fact, there were times when I felt I was getting too many updates and texts!), the cleanup is happening quickly….I don’t see why we need to complain about a good job. They do so much badly. Let them get a little credit for doing something well!!!
I respectfully disagree as well. I am a native Savannahian, but I moved to South Florida a couple years ago. At the urging of the Florida Governor I voluntarily evacuated from Florida on Tuesday last week. I evacuated to Savannah where my family and elderly father still live. Of course, the storm track changed and forecasted direction closer to Savannah. We watched the news and made a decision to evacuate when the islands were under mandatory evacuation. Everything seemed to be executed according to a well practiced and thought out plan. The contra-flow was executed, people were transported, State Patrol covered highways and local law enforcement worked in the county and city. There was constant communication from both WSAV and WTOC. I followed both on FB. When the storm passed, the city officials made it clear that it was NOT SAFE to return…the city was incapacitated…from the NATURAL DISASTER…not the local officials fault. I stayed in Atlanta with family until it was clear that my family could return safely. Although it took several days to restore power, I completely understand why…hundreds of thousands of people were without. Correcting this amount of damage is a massive undertaking for any organization!
I think if you have something negative to say, you were looking for it in order to move your own agenda forward…to cause a city divide or for your own political aspirations. From a native of Savannah, it is clear that Savannah learned from past experiences and has worked to ensure past mistakes were not repeated! I’m sure it wasn’t perfect as no plan ever is, but I’m confident that after this the City will assess the process and modify accordingly for the next disaster.
Great job to you all! Thanks to your constant communication with the public, my dad is safely home in a house with power and I’m back in South Florida. Had it not been for the City’s well executed plan, the result could have been very different.
AMEN!!!
I worked for the Dublin/Laurens County Red Cross during the mandatory evacuation of Chatham County (and othercounties/states) during Hurricane Floyd in September 1999, 17 years ago. Our small chapter (2 full-time employees) opened 7 0r 8 shelters with a large group of volunteers locally. We sheltered over 5,000 people.
President Bill Clinton declared a federal state off emergency in both Florida and Georgia in anticipation of the storm’s approach. As the storm turned to the north, more people were evacuated as a progressively larger area was threatened.
The massive storm caused what was at the time the largest peacetime evacuation ever in the U.S., with around 2.6 million evacuating coastal areas in Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas. The states of Georgia and South Carolina, although threatened by the storm, were largely spared when it turned northward. North Carolina took the brunt of the hurricane.
A lot went terribly wrong during that evacuation. Afterwards, FEMA, all city and county officals, emergency personnel, state government, U.S. Army Cirps of Engineers, DOT, Law Enforcement, Red Cross, Media, Humane Services and other agencies got together to discuss what went wrong and how to fix it.
A lot of things were done WRONG during Floyd and fixed:
1. They didn’t have ALL the roads (16 and 95) running one way out of the county. This was fixed to have all roads going only one way.
2. People were getting off every exit and not going far enough inland. This was fixed by putting up the gate/arms.
3. On the Emergency team were supposed to be representation from City, County, Police, Fire, Education, Medical, etc. Before issuing ANY announcement, it was discussed by ALL and then ONE voice made announcements (preferred should be your local emergency management leader).
There are more recommendation’s from the report “Hurricane Floyd Assessment – NOAA Office for Coastal Management,” https://search.usa.gov/search?affiliate=cs….
What astounded me is that residents didn’t a chance to even get home before they are telling tourists to come to Savannah. We were on the other side of the state getting texts from CEMA on one issue or another. Then, they would retract what they said. It added to our anxiety. SC governor was a pro and on top of everything. Governor Deal was MIA for days.
The GA State Patrol, local law enforcement, first responders get an A+ for the courage and efforts to keep everyone safe.
Since this was my first hurricane I would of found it helpful when they asked us to leave if there had been announcements regarding where shelters were available. I would of like to know if there was anywhere to take pets.
I was fortunate enough to have family to shelter me out of the area.
I am very impressed with how much progress has been made repairing and reestablishing community services and environment.
Hello
Governor sat and chilled In ATL in sunny skies and didn’t care. Weather Channel and national outlets ignored us because floods in NC and Fla are sexier than hundreds of toppled oaks. But the local government made their decision in enough time and it ended up fine. We evacuated to Vidalia and got local news which was huge. The slow reentry was for the best. I disagee: well done Chatham.
“And you deserve better.”
Thanks, Jim, for my new campaign slogan.
Murray@Tried2TellYa
With no electricity, not even one radio station (that I know of) dedicated themselves to news about evacuation, where people could stay (with or without pets), transportation for those without, and re-entry. On Sunday I decided to call the non-emergency number on Tybee, and they told me Tybee would open at 5:00 p.m. (which is the same time Abercorn opened up at I-95 & 204), but didn’t mention that it would take 1 hour to get through a line where they were checking IDs.
I asked the State Trooper why my Tybee parking sticker, which can be seen easily was not “proof enough” — he told me those stickers were a dime a dozen? Did he check with local Tybee police or officials for that information?
Canebreak Road at I-95 & Gateway (parallel to 204) leads directly to 17. State Trooper stopped and diverted all traffic on that road with no understanding or information about what was happening on the other end of that 1 mile road. I understand there was no entry to Richmond Hill, but what about the left turn that goes to Kroger’s which was open by then, or Walmart also reportedly open? No info at all (and I’m sure she was in the dark, you could just tell) but rude to boot.
The lack of clear information was the biggest problem all the way around. Compared to Nikki Haley and her team, Chatham and Georgia looked like Katrina officials even all these years later. (And just so everyone knows for future, you could get into the city if you could get onto 17 and take it to Victory Drive. As long as you were careful of downed trees you could get all the way to Wilmington.)
Please get your act together, and speak with one voice. And then share the information throughout the organizations (top to bottom) that are there to help people. The competing egos could not have been more plain.
What was the point of the cops (and soldiers) stopping people from returning to their homes on Sunday? The storm was pretty much over by sunup Saturday morning and Sunday was a bright, sunny day.
Why not allow residents in and let them find their own way home? Stopping people at all the I-95 exits was wrong, I feel. And if it was a “violation” to enter the county at 2, 3, or 4pm, why was it OK at 5 pm?
The OP on here said she was able to get in via Hwy 17. I tried that too, but found a herd of cops about a mile from Richmond Hill turning everyone away. Foolish, if you ask me. There were cops and soldiers at every exit, I found. Why weren’t they downtown guarding against and arresting looters? Instead they turned anxious residents away from their homes. Waste of taxpayer money, is what it was.