The City of Key West is preparing for another storm

Key West Mayor Dee Dee Henriquez joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s going on in the city. 

With another storm on the horizon, the city is planning once again. 

Henriquez said, “We are back into preparations again for the city of Key West. We have a county wide Zoom meeting with the EOC at 9:30 this morning. So we’ll get a quite a few updates this morning at 9:30. So yes, we are in a tropical storm watch now into effect for all of the Keys, from Key West to Ocean Reef, we’re under a coastal flood watch, and there’s a hurricane watch for the Dry Tortugas.”

There hasn’t been any talk of evacuation at the moment. 

Henriquez said, “As of right now, no, but I think we’ll be making all of those decisions tomorrow, depending on what happens during the day. But tomorrow is when I believe the city is going to be making all of those decisions.”

It takes a lot of coordination during a storm and preparation for a storm. 

Henriquez said, “It really is and Shannon does a wonderful job with the EOC. It’s amazing how, like you said, all of the entities that come together, the school board, all the municipalities, the county, it’s just a wonderful thing. Communication always has been key with me, as everybody knows, and this is a prime example of great communication during times of this need.”

There are a number of meetings on the schedule for the week for the city. 

Henriquez said, “The advisory selection committee for the city manager meets today at three o’clock in the chambers here at City Hall. So we do have a final number of applicants that have applied for the city manager’s position, which is 17 applicants. So today they will start going through the applicants, ranking each applicant, and then they will have a preliminary recommendation of the committee, eventually to the City Commission. After my EOC, I have my agenda review for the commission meeting, and from my understanding, there will be an item number 40 for discussion in reference to the procedures and timeline as well as the interview process. So that will take place today at three. We have the Bahama Village Redevelopment Advisory Committee, also known as the BVRAC. They will meet tonight at 5:30. We have hopefully the commission meeting Thursday at nine. So this will all be tentative, hopefully none of them will get canceled, and that means the storms move further north, but we just have to be on standby and we’ll make those decisions tomorrow.”

Will there still be two meetings in one day? 

Henriquez said, “We have a commission meeting on Thursday the 10th starting at nine, if it doesn’t get canceled. There are about 55 items on the agenda, and one of the items is that if the meetings are going to go from Thursday to the first Tuesday of the month. They’ve always been on a Tuesday, so if that gets approved by the Commission, they’ll change the date from Thursday to the first Tuesday of the month. As of right now, that’s the way the agenda item reads, that it’s only once a month. They have not talked or made any decisions on changing it to twice a month.”

This is not the first hurricane season for Henriquez. 

She said, “With Hurricane Helene, someone had asked me, Dee Dee was this your first EOC meeting? And I’m like, no, my first hurricane that I went through, as in the tax collector’s office, was in 1998 with Hurricane George’s, where our roof blew off in Big Pine Key. That’s when we had seven offices up and down the Keys. Pay attention to our website and our Facebook page, with the city of Key West. Everyone’s out there trying to share as much information as possible, and now is the time to prepare for the storm. It’s better to be overly prepared than not at all. So be safe out there and prepare. Now is the time to do it.”