Florida Keys leaders want more control over how coronavirus information is released
Florida Keys officials are becoming increasingly frustrated over what they call leaks to the media about their plans amid of the coronavirus crisis, and vowed Wednesday to “right this ship” in terms of how information gets out to the public.
Emergency Management and Monroe County leadership was particularly exasperated after news outlets, including the Miami Herald/FLKeysnews.com broke news Tuesday evening that checkpoints were going up on the 18 Mile Stretch of U.S. 1 and on County Road 905 Friday to keep tourists out of the Keys.
The county issued a press release about the checkpoints about a half hour after the story was posted. And the message was starkly different from the one given by the county’s top elected official earlier in the day that there were no plans to erect checkpoints.
Monroe County Mayor Heather Carruthers told reporters during a Tuesday morning news conference that officials deemed the checkpoint idea too intrusive a move to residents and people from the mainland who work in the the Keys.
Carruthers told her colleagues on a conference call meeting Wednesday, which included government officials and business leaders, that she was “reluctant” to reverse the decision, but consensus among officials in municipalities including Islamorada and Key West was to close U.S. 1 to tourists
She said she ultimately changed her mind after hearing about increasing numbers of COVID-19 cases in Miami-Dade County and a case in the Keys that is “indirectly travel-related.”
Still, she said there were “mishaps” in the way the message was communicated.
“I do apologize for the way it was rolled out,” she said.
She promised she and other Keys officials would “button up the process as much as we can” and that there would be more “discipline in management” of information.
Monroe County Emergency Director Shannon Weiner said she was changing the call-in number for the teleconference meetings to try to get a better handle on what information was getting to the media. Wednesday’s meeting was listened to by more than 100 people, including several reporters.
Weiner warned people not to share the new number with reporters, saying she can “bounce” people off the call. She also said she has ways of knowing if people forward the emailed invitation with the conference call number.
Her predecessor, Marty Senterfitt, who still works for the county on a contractual basis, said between the state Department of Health, the county and Emergency Management, too many people are distributing information without vetting it through an “incident command” central clearinghouse.
He said by doing so, “we’re going to continue torpedoing our own boat.”
“The incident command system is all about process, and the process was put there for a reason,” he said.
The decision to close U.S. 1 to tourists comes almost a week after the county ordered all hotels and short-term rental units closed, a story the Miami Herald/FLKeysNews also published before the decision was announced by the county.
Officials are also frustrated that news about new cases of COVID-19 is often published by news outlets and on social media before it is officially announced.
“I heard about the first case [of COVID-19] and the road closure from the press,” Key West City Manager Greg Veliz said.
Bob Eadie, administrator for the Florida Department of Health in Monroe County, took issue with Veliz’s comment, saying a Key West city commissioner announced on Facebook news of the county’s first COVID-19 case before his department could confirm it.
“One of your commissioners was Facebooking people before it had ever been confirmed by me,” Eadie said. “Facebook seems to be ruling what is going on before we release it.”
Veliz said he found out about the first case, which was in Ocean Reef in Key Largo, from his wife, who read a story about it reported in a Key West newspaper article.
“I doubt it came from my commissioners,” he said.
This story was originally published March 25, 2020 at 2:12 PM with the headline "Florida Keys leaders want more control over how coronavirus information is released."
