DeSantis Snaps Back at CNN Reporter’s Question about Evacuation Orders: Media Wasn’t In Lee County When Storm Hit, ‘You Were in Tampa’

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) defended Lee County’s delayed evacuation announcement in response to a CNN reporter’s question, pointing out that the media had been in Tampa, where the original weather track had Hurricane Ian headed.

CNN national correspondent Nadia Romero was in Arcadia, a southwest Florida town that was heavily impacted by the storm, and was among a gaggle of reporters questioning the governor about the hurricane.

The late issuance of a mandatory evacuation order in Lee County has been heavily scrutinized. A report by The New York Times described how other counties along Florida’s Gulf Coast issued evacuation orders on Monday but Lee County officials waited until Tuesday:

Lee County, which includes the hard-hit seaside community of Fort Myers Beach, as well as the towns of Fort Myers, Sanibel and Cape Coral, did not issue a mandatory evacuation order for the areas likely to be hardest hit until Tuesday morning, a day after several neighboring counties had ordered their most vulnerable residents to flee…

But while the track of Hurricane Ian did shift closer to Lee County in the days before it made landfall, the surge risks the county faced — even with the more northerly track — were becoming apparent as early as Sunday night.

At that point, the National Hurricane Center produced modeling showing a chance of a storm surge covering much of Cape Coral and Fort Myers. Parts of Fort Myers Beach, even in that case, had a 40 percent chance of a six-foot-high storm surge, according to the surge forecasts.

Lee County’s emergency planning documents had set out a time-is-of-the-essence strategy, noting that the region’s large population and limited road system make it difficult to evacuate the county swiftly. Over years of work, the county has created a phased approach that expands the scope of evacuations in proportion to the certainty of risk. “Severe events may require decisions with little solid information,” the documents say.

“Why do you stand behind Lee County’s decision to not have that mandatory evacuation until the day before the storm?” Romero asked DeSantis.

“Well did you — where was your industry stationed when the storm hit?” DeSantis replied. “Were you guys in Lee County? No, you were in Tampa.”

“So they were following the weather track and they had to make decisions based on that,” DeSantis continued. “But, you know, 72 hours, they weren’t even in the cone. 48 hours they were on the periphery, so you have to make the decisions best you can. I will say they delivered the message to people. They had shelters open. Everybody had adequate opportunity to get to a shelter within the county. But a lot of the residents did not want to do that. I think probably for various reasons. Some people don’t want to leave their home, period, they’re island people, whatever.”

“But I think part of it was, so much attention was paid to Tampa, a lot of them thought they wouldn’t get the worst of it but they did, and I think it is easy to second-guess them. But they were ready for it the whole time and made that call when there was justifiable to do so,” the governor added.

“Some of the neighboring counties did have mandatory evacuations, though, before Tuesday,” Romero pointed out.

DeSantis responded that other areas like Sarasota and Charlotte had revised their evacuation advisories Monday night and Tuesday morning.

“I think it’s easy to say in hindsight,” he said, describing how the state initially had a lot of their resources stationed in the Tampa Ba area and then shifted them south as the track changed. The area was always expected to have some sort of impact, because Ian was “such a big storm,” but there’s a huge difference between some impacts and being directly hit by the eye, as ended up happening.

Romero asked DeSantis if the evacuation orders would be something that he would be reviewing, because Lee County had not followed their own emergency protocols, and if they had, “they should have had that mandatory evacuation order sooner.”

“They informed people and most people did not want to do it,” DeSantis replied. “That’s just the reality. So you’re in a situation, are you going to grab somebody out of their home that doesn’t want to. I don’t think that’s the appropriate use of government. I mean, I think that takes it a little too far.”

She followed up with several questions about Florida’s troubled property insurance market, the many affected properties that lacked flood insurance, and the expected rise in the death toll. The governor praised Elon Musk’s Starlink internet satellite system, which was being used to help southwest Floridians get messages to loved ones with so much of the area lacking electricity and reliable cell phone signals, and multiple government agencies and aid organizations that had come into the area to help.

“I think people have really pulled together,” said DeSantis. “I think that they’ve done a really good job. There’s a lot of work ahead, obviously, but I think the resilience has been great…I think the spirit is great and I do think people pulled together well.”