With New Cat-5 Resistant Roof, Flagler’s Emergency Management Prepares for Hurricane Season of 13 to 19 Named Storms

While Flagler County Emergency Management Director Jonathan Lord was giving his annual pre-hurricane season briefing to local media near midday today, some pretty significant rattling was taking place above everyone’s head: workers were putting the finishing touches on an $830,000-some roof Lord has been trying to get installed since 2019. 

When it was built two decades ago, the Emergency Operations Center in Bunnell was supposed to have the kind of roof that would resist a Category 5 hurricane. But an engineer wouldn’t certify it to that strength when asked in 2019. Plus the roof had sustained damage over the years from recurring storms. That started the discussions for a stronger roof, which can now withstand winds of up to 180 miles an hour. 

No such winds have ever been recorded in Flagler County, at least not since the dawn or records, though this is also the era of records-shattering. For an emergency operations center that houses up to 70 of the most essential local personnel and policy-makers from a few dozen agencies during the greatest emergencies, EOC could not afford so much as a chink in its armor. Even the infrastructure housing EOC’s generators is now Cat-5 resistant. Whatever plagued the generators during the Hurricane Milton emergency last year, when they failed, has been fixed and tested. 

The roof is no longer green but gray, differentiating it from what had been the signature color of Flagler County government buildings (not least the lock-up often referred to as the Green Roof Inn). 

The best part for Lord, as he stood outside the EOC building today, talking about the roof while workers hammered in gutters: it’s 90 percent paid for with federal funds, part of the post-Covid Hazard Mitigation Grant Program administered through the Federal Emergency Management Administration, or FEMA. (The grants were issued during the first federal post-Covid aid program initiated in the first Trump administration.) Better yet: Flagler County’s Emergency Operations Center last year became one of just six of Florida’s 67 counties to be accredited.

“We still have some processes related to maintaining that, we’ve been going through and are passing with flying colors,” Lord told the County Commission last week. “I find that very important to me. It’s not just a sticker and it’s not just something cool to have. It’s an outside entity validating that we’re doing the right thing for our community, versus Jonathan just telling you that we are.” 

All of that positions Lord’s EOC as well as it could be positioned to take on the hurricane season bearing down on the Atlantic. It is expected to be another busy one with somewhat more storms, and more violent storms, than the 30-year average. Two organizations issue the most-quoted forecasts every spring: Colorado State University and the National Hurricane Center. 

CSU is projecting 17 named storms, three more than the 30-year average, and nine hurricanes, two more than the average. Four of those are expected to be major hurricanes, or storms with Category 3 winds or higher (111 miles per hour and up.) 

The National Hurricane Center projects ranges rather than precise numbers: 13 to 19 named storms, six to 10 hurricanes, three to five of them major. There were 18 named storms in 2024. 

This year’s storms will begin with Andrea, Barry and Chantal (that’ll bring back unhappy memories for Texans and the Gulf of Mexico in 1989, where that year’s Chantal left 13 dead, 10 of them on an oil rig). Many of this year’s names, as in previous years, are recognizable retreads from previous seasons–Erin,  Fernands, Gabrielle and so on. Donald is not on the list. 

“But as I tell you guys every year, the forecast is not the most important thing,” Lord said, “because if we have the quietest year ever, one storm hitting our community is bad.” The season is between June 1 and Nov. 1, though the dates are not fail-safe. Flagler County’s and Florida’s peak season is September and October. 

No organization projects dates or trajectories. That’ll be left to the various models, NHC’s included, once a storm begins to form either off the coast of Africa or in the Caribbean. But the National Hurricane Center’s “cone of probability” has been made yet more precise this year, if just slightly, meaning that it will look narrower once the public gets its first look. 

“The weather services in the past used to only just [show] the cone and then maybe colored hurricane or tropical storm right along the coastline,” Lord said. “Now they’re carrying that further inland to make it better messaging.” 

Lord says dust storms clouding West Africa right now are helping to tamp down hurricane activity. On the other hand, ocean water temperatures drive hurricane forecasts. The higher the temperature, the more frequent the hurricanes. The water temperature is higher than average. 

As for evacuation zones, those changed last year, going from what used to be A-B-C-D-E-F zones to more precisely named hurricane evacuation zones to Palm Coast residents would not confuse the alphabetical references with their neighborhoods, most of which are still identified by their alphabetical letter. The new science of forecasting also made it possible to target evacuations by neighborhood. “That was not feasible five years ago, it became feasible three years ago, and we obviously locked it in last year,” Lord said. 

The bridges will not close during tropical storm or hurricane emergencies. But all evacuations will be mandatory. “There’s no such thing as a voluntary evacuation,” Lord said. At the same time, no evacuation is enforceable: cops or anyone else will not force anyone to leave their home. But emergency services will not go to those homes during severe weather emergencies. 

The Flagler Humane Society continues its role as a shelter for animals during emergencies. “I don’t know what we do without them,” Lord said of the often-maligned society. “We don’t have county staff that could do that, and they are volunteers as well as their staff. And they bend over backwards to make sure that we can also evacuate people with their normal domestic pets. Not strange, exotic animals.” 

Flagler County continues to partner with Flagler schools for shelters during severe storms, but the county, through an initiative championed by Commissioner Leann Pennington, became one of just three counties to get a $10 million state appropriation enabling the construction of a non-school-based emergency shelter. That 10,000 square foot shelter, with 5,000 square feet of storage, bathrooms and kitchen, will be built by Cattleman’s Hall at the county fairgrounds. 

The building will be just as wind-resistant as the Emergency Operations Center, and it is slated for completion by next summer. It’ll accommodate some 500 cots. The hope, as always, is that neither building nor cots are ever needed. 

Failing that, there’s always the inspirational advice Lord offers his staff, usually by way of a saying by a historic figure. This month’s, penned on a whiteboard at the entrance to the large emergency operations room, is by Francis of Assisi, who was known to have pulled off an impossible thing or two in his saintly life eight centuries ago: “Start by doing what’s necessary, then do what’s possible, and then suddenly you are doing the impossible.”

The Briefing:

Media Roundtable