GRAPHIC:
September 2009 marks five years since Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne struck Florida within three weeks of each other. Emergency managers reflect on their responses to the storms.

Dave Halstead:
Well, Frances was probably the most difficult of all the storms in the '04 season, simply because it was so large and it was so slow moving. 

Ben Nelson:
It seemed like it took days and days for the storm first to even approach and then all of the rainfall that it dumped across the state and the very large wind field.  

Dave Halstead:
It moved so slowly that response efforts couldn't begin until the tropical force storm winds died down and that, in many cases, was more than 36 hours.

Mike Delorenzo:
Usually facilities will have to be on emergency power for a short period of time and then they get power back. The length and duration of Frances caused such a strain on the emergency structure. 

Ben Nelson:
It really did hamper our efforts in getting logistics into the affected area along the Treasure Coast. 

Chuck Hagan:
During Frances at this point we were fully up and operating for Charley running actually two staging areas. 

Mike Delorenzo:
We had to take special actions to keep hospitals and nursing homes running in that storm longer than you would normally do with a fast moving storm.

Chuck Hagan:
Frances posed challenges. We were going to have to open additional staging areas on the other side of the state and being able to increase resource allocations to county points of distribution, additional generators and pumps, and a variety of other resources. 

Mike Delorenzo:
And we learned that don't just stage supplies up in North Florida. Stage supplies in South Florida so that you can come in on the back side of the storm and help individuals. 

Ben Nelson
That was a storm that left many Floridians in shelters for days, one of the slowest moving storms I've ever seen. 

Mike Delorenzo:
The fourth storm, Hurricane Jeanne, was forecast to go out to sea and then it did a loop and started to come back and hit the state of Florida.

Ben Nelson:
When Jeanne made landfall on the treasure coast of Florida I was here at the state Emergency Operations Center not even believing my eyes that we could have 2 storms within a few week period make landfall at the exact same location in our state.

Mike Delorenzo:
And one of the hardest things was going into that room and telling the staff that we were going to have to do a fourth storm.

Dave Halstead:
Having gone through '04 we were stretched about as far as a team could be stretched.

Mike Delorenzo:
By the end of that season, we would have the most experienced staff in the country and maybe even in the world.

GRAPHIC:
FloridaDisaster.org
FEMA.gov