Updated evacuation zones include more of Sarasota County - WWSB ABC 7 Florida
Reported by: Meredith Garofalo – Channel 7 ABC News WWSB Sarasota, Florida  May 12, 2011

Updated Evacuation Zones Include More of Sarasota County

SARASOTA - Hurricane season is less than a month away, and beginning this year, when storms threaten the Suncoast, some people in Sarasota County that did not have to worry about evacuating in the past might have to from now on.

Before the evacuation zones were updated, some areas – like a section near Fruitville Road east of I-75 -- were not included in an evacuation zone. But that's all changed now.

“We are now in a Hurricane 5 zone, which means we are no longer in a safe area,” says homeowner Bruce Schwartz about the area that used to be the safe house for his friends and family when they’d evacuate their barrier island home during hurricane season. “We are under, basically, the same type of a evacuation scenario as the key would be, because of the new information and the new technology that has come forward presented by the EOC.”

The Schwartz's are not alone. Many people living in Sarasota County have either changed zones or are now included in one as a result of an update to the evacuation and storm surge zones.

“They flew an aircraft over the county using a system called ‘Lidar.’ It's basically a laser system that the aircraft shoots a pulse of lasers down to the Earth's surface, and as it bounces back, it measures the time it takes and determines the elevation, which creates a digital elevation model,” says Ed McCrane, chief of Sarasota County Emergency Management.

Combining that with a computerized hurricane 'slosh' model can simulate Category 1 through 5 hurricanes with worst case scenarios. “We then take those areas and consolidate them, fill them in, fill in areas that were maybe a high ground within lower ground and so forth, and create the evacuation zone.”

To find out if your zone has changed, log onto this Sarasota County website, and then enter your address to view your current evacuation zone.

It’s something McCrane says every person in Sarasota County should do now, rather than later. “Every hurricane is different, every hurricane season is different, and we may go many, many years without an impact. But then this could be the year that we have a hurricane…you never know.”

“I think it's great to know they have better technology and more of an early warning system to allow us to get out more safely,” says Schwartz.

Manatee County used the Lidar sweep last year and implemented the changes to zones before last hurricane season.

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