bj88 Fears of flooding by Hurricane Milton spark run on sandbags in Miami-Dade County
After his Costco run in the Miami suburbs on Mondaybj88, Connor Price pulled his car into a line at Tropical Park with dozens of vehicles ahead of him for a free but scarce government resource: bagged sand.
“We just bought a new home, and we haven’t been here for a big storm,” Price said after a Miami-Dade County parks crew loaded four 30-pound sandbags into a hatchback already crowded with jumbo battery packs, eggs, pasta, toilet paper and bottled water.
The Kendall resident said he planned to use the 120 pounds of county sand to fortify his new home’s back door. “Our gutter drains right into the patio,” he said. “So it floods there.”
Price was one of hundreds of people who drove up to nine county parks for a last-minute distribution effort by a local government that usually stays out of the sandbag effort. While Miami, Miami Gardens and other municipalities regularly offer free sandbags to residents, Miami-Dade commissioners this year pressed the administration of Mayor Daniella Levine Cava to launch a countywide distribution effort.
READ MORE: Here’s where to find sandbags in South Florida before Milton makes landfall on Gulf Coast
When Hurricane Milton spun up as a Florida threat in the Gulf of Mexico over the weekend, Miami-Dade had to play catch-up on the sand front. On Sunday, Levine Cava signed a state of emergency for Miami-Dade that triggered looser procurement rules, allowing an emergency $1.2 million deal for 81,000 bags with a Miami provider, Emergency Sandbag Response.
“We signed the contract yesterday,” Levine Cava said on a break from helping load sandbags at Tropical Park for a line of vehicles that Price and others said took nearly two hours to get through.
Sandbag distributions offer elected officials publicity opportunities when a storm threatens. Levine Cava’s office sent out a press release announcing her visit along with the county’s public safety chief, James Reyes, a Democrat who is Levine Cava’s pick for the November sheriff race. Drivers exiting the sandbag area were greeted by a sandwich board with a photo of the county commissioner representing the area, Vice Chair Anthony Rodriguez.
But there’s no question demand was high Monday for the county’s sandbags. Maria Nardi, the county’s parks director, said at a noon press conference that 1,454 vehicles had already worked their way through the lines at the nine distribution centers, and more than 5,800 bags were given away. That amounts to more than 175,000 pounds of sand, or nearly 90 tons.
Even with 81,000 bags in total contracted to give away, Nardi said she wasn’t sure how long they would last.
“We anticipate we will have run out by the end of today,” Nardi said at the press conference at the county’s Emergency Operations Center in Doral. By 4 p.m., a Levine Cava spokesperson said 30,000 had been handed out since 7 a.m. The distribution at Tropical and eight other parks — Amelia Earhart, Gwen Cherry, Greynolds, Homestead Air Reserve, Ives Estate, Oak Grove, Tamiami and Thompson Memorial — was set to continue until the county had no more bags to give away. If there bags remain tonight, the operation will resume on Tuesday, Levine Cava’s office said.
County Commissioner Marleine Bastien’s district includes low-income neighborhoods north of Miami that rely on Miami-Dade for local services. She said a morning visit to the county’s sandbag center at Oak Grove Park outside of Miami’s city limits made it clear that the county is meeting a demand from residents when a storm threatens.
“Cars were lined up to get the sandbags,” she said. “There is a big need.”
While Miami-Dade cities have been distributing free sandbags for years, many require proof of the recipient living within city limits. About 40% of the county’s 2.7 million residents live in areas not represented by a municipal government, so they were largely excluded from sandbag operations until now.
At a committee hearing last month Commissioner Micky Steinberg, who represents most of Miami-Dade’s coastal cities, pushed the county’s emergency management director, Pete Gomez, to be ready with sandbags the next time a storm threatens. Gomez pointed out most Florida counties leave sandbag distribution to the cities but agreed to follow up on the idea.
On Monday, Gomez said while Miami-Dade hasn’t handed out sandbags before, Monday’s operation was launched because “there was a lot of demand.”
The county isn’t requiring ID to get four sandbags, and the giveaway is open to all county residents for as long as the supplies last.
While the four bags are hardly enough to hold back severe flooding, they can be deployed to increase elevation around a particularly vulnerable part of a house — such as a doorway next to a low spot.
Evelina Betancourt waited about 1 hour and 50 minutes at Tropical Park to snag sandbags she planned to use to ward off the higher water she fears will collect behind her home in the nearby Sunset neighborhood.
“These will be for my back doorbj88,” she said. “Where my pool is.”