Sarasota County Fire Chief: Avoid hard-hit areas after Milton

SARASOTA — Firefighters are already planning missions to assess the damage from Hurricane Milton and rescue isolated residents.

As they plan, however, officials are urging civilians to avoid hard-hit areas for fear of compromising response resources.

Sarasota County Fire Chief David Rathbun, working out the county’s Emergency Operations Center, specifically warned against disaster tourism when firefighters and other first responders deploy.

“They’ll go door-to-door to do that,” he said.

The initial assessment will be at fire stations across the county, as first responders evaluate if the stations are safe to deploy out of.

Teams of firefighters, medical personnel, law enforcement, and Public Works staff will then deploy from safe stations to different parts of Sarasota County to assess damages, clear debris, and check in on residents who sheltered in place.

Assistant Fire Chief Tim Dorsey said the department is working off the assumption that bridges to the barrier islands will not be usable in the immediate aftermath of Milton.

Teams deploying to the islands have prepared boats to conduct assessment and searches.

When asked how certain he was about the bridges’ future status, Dorsey noted that bridges to outlying islands in Fort Myers suffered heavy damage after Hurricane Ian in 2022.

“We’ve seen it happen in the past,” he said.

Ian made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane in late September 2022. According to recent projections from the National Weather Service, Milton was anticipated to make landfall as a Category 3.

Once initial assessments are made, fire officials said that a second shift of responders — including National Guard units and agencies across the state and nation providing aid — will coordinate for a larger search effort.

Rathbun said that first responders would continue to answer calls until winds reach 45 miles-per-hour sustained force, or gusts of 75 miles-per-hour.

He also noted federal personnel released from duty in North Carolina are on their way to Florida, pivoting from previous Helene related damage to post-Milton recovery.

Sarasota County already has roughly 430 members of the National Guard assigned to coordinate with local authorities on search and rescue, according to Rathbun.

When asked if damage from Helene may complicate efforts post-Milton, Rathbun and Dorsey noted that Helene may have given a “wake-up” call to local residents to take evacuation warnings seriously.

“I think a lot of people who stayed during Helene learned,” Rathbun said.

“Every storm has different characteristics,” Dorsey added.

Both warned residents about traveling after the storm, as flooding is likely to persist even after the winds return to safe levels.