As hurricane season begins on June 1, experts are predicting that governments and disaster recovery workers may face storms on multiple fronts, as the world is still undergoing the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The impact of the necessary shutdowns to combat the coronavirus has impacted peoples’ personal finances and ability to evacuate, as well as the logistics of mass evacuation shelters in a time of social distancing. “”How can you shelter 300,000 people when you can’t pack them all into gymnasiums like you have in the past?” Bryan Koon, the former director of Florida’s Division of Emergency Management, asked CNN. Some experts, such as Trevor Riggen, senior vice president for disaster cycle services at the American Red Cross, told CNN that strategies could include using hotels to shelter people in place, and additional measures such as temperature and symptom screening, spacing out of cots in shelters and hand sanitizing stations.
According to an article in The Atlantic, this double whammy of disaster and pandemic means that citizens should also ready themselves personally for disaster, making evacuation plans, identifying trustworthy sources of information and ensuring that they are well supplied.
Source:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/18/politics/coronavirus-natural-disaster-response-fema/index.html
