Q&A with Collier Director of Emergency Services Dan Summers about 2022 hurricane season

The Naples Daily News spoke to Dan Summers, director of Emergency Services at Collier County Government, about the 2022 hurricane season. June will mark Summers' 17th year as director. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Hurricane Irma was the last hurricane to hit Collier County, what did we learn from that? 

We want to stress a couple of things, and that continues to be we highly encourage individuals to register with alert Collier, which is our mass notification and communication system. You can go online there and register. That way, we can ensure that we can get local information and timely information. The second thing is that we remind folks to get a 24-hour or 48-hour emergency kit. If we get a major hurricane event, we want you to be at a minimum level of preparedness with resources to be as resilient and self-sufficient as possible. Especially if we get a major hurricane event. I would say that, you know, also we want to remind individuals that if they are electrically dependent or oxygen or transportation dependent, to please be sure to go to the Collier Emergency Management website and register on our special needs registry database there so that we can help determine what is your best option during those storm events. 

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How are you feeling about this year's preparations? 

There are hardly any communities in coastal Florida that don't have some planning level that generates a shortfall of shelter space. Most counties have a lack of public shelter space and we're not any exception. Because we don't have big convention centers, most of our sheltering are limited to the availability of public school buildings. We will do our best to house the numbers but you need to evaluate what your storms are at risk. In some cases, there's that option to shelter in place. And that's why you have your emergency kit if you've got the capabilities to do that. 

What lesson do you hope residents take to heart? 

We encourage folks to go to our website to make sure they understand which evacuation zone they live in, and remember to that our public shelters are sort of referred to them as the lifeboat, not the Love Boat. They should be your last option for sheltering or for refuge. And be sure to make plans to go with family or friends or hotels with inland evacuation.

Are there any areas of the county of particular concern?

No. Nothing has changed. We always determine that vulnerability based on what we expect from storm surge inundation. And that really has not changed, the computers have gotten a little bit better. And the formulas and the algorithms that help compute that storm surge data along with better topography maps, and those types of things have gotten a little bit better.

With all the growth in the past year, what should newcomers know?

Our website is really just chock full. Everything that we possibly can think of from A to Z is on that website. Take a few minutes and really read that and if you have any major questions or concerns, give our office a call. We'll be glad to help.