Few people in America know more about disaster planning and recovery than Craig Fugate. The former head of both Florida's and the nation's emergency management agencies was back in Tallahassee on Tuesday, July 30.
Fugate has weathered dozens of big storms. That includes the parade of hurricanes that pounded Florida in 2004 and 2005. Tallahassee took hits from Hurricane Hermine in 2016, Michael in 2018 and tornadoes this May. But Fugate said a storm called Kate that wasn't even a category one hurricane caused worse damage to Tallahassee almost 40 years ago.
"Hurricane Kate taught us you've got to do some aggressive tree trimming if you want to keep the power grid up. And this is why in new subdivisions we're doing that, we're undergrounding, but this is a big debate. Where should we underground in the future and retroactively underground? That's really the only way you're going to keep the grid from being on the ground in one of these storms."
During his talk before members of the Capital Tiger Bay Club, Fugate also said Florida's property insurance rates would remain unaffordable so long as those companies keep insuring hurricane and flood-prone areas.
