Planning for after Irma wasn’t the problem, leadership was

Once again, I am happy to correct some misinformation put forth by a Monroe County resident.

I am Monroe County Emergency Management Director Marty Senterfitt’s predecessor and let me assure you that Monroe County Emergency Management has all recovery plans and procedures in place. Under my management, Monroe County Emergency Management was the first county in the state of Florida to have successfully formulated a county recovery plan.

Additionally, the comprehensive emergency management plan fully covers recovery protocols and procedures. I did not concentrate on the “pre-hurricane activities, evacuation, at the expense of post-hurricane recovery.” My focus, as the Emergency Management director, was on all aspects of emergency management — planning, preparedness, response and recovery. To state otherwise is incorrect.

Our Emergency Management response to recoveries after many events has been proven successful each and every time the county was in that predicament. Monroe County Emergency Management has (and always had) the best trained and experienced staff. Maybe letter writer Larry Murray should have checked with the department directly and asked to review our recovery plan.

There was no reason for Mr. Senterfitt “making things up as they went along.” There are established plans in place that should have been followed. This is a leadership weakness and lack of experience in hurricane response by the current Emergency Management director in Monroe County and not the lack of established departmental protocols.

This story was originally published December 22, 2017 at 3:39 PM with the headline "Planning for after Irma wasn’t the problem, leadership was."