The Visitor & Convention Bureau globally markets Lee County and all of Southwest Florida, facilitates travel to the area, and protects the area's unique attributes for the benefit of residents and tourism.
But during tropical cyclones, the VCB also works with local hotels to find rooms for the various response teams who help in the storm’s aftermath. These teams include FPL linemen, search and rescue teams from FEMA, the U.S. Coast Guard, National Guard, and Department of Forestry.
“As emergency workers pull into town," VCB Communications Director Ray Sarracino said, " we want to make sure we have places to stash them when they get here.”
The VCB calls the program “heads in beds.” Its purpose is to ensure that every emergency responder has a place to sleep and shower before rejoining the fray.
The VCB takes its mission so seriously that it conducts a table top training exercise with area hotels every June at the Emergency Operations Center. The hotels agree to set aside a number of rooms during hurricane season for just this exigency.
During a storm, they populate a communications hub that tracks how many hotel rooms are available for emergency responders. And it’s a labor of love.
“The people who are at EOC are really busting their butts to make sure that everybody has a place to stay,” Sarracino added.
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During a storm, the VCB also works with local hoteliers to monitor the status of their facilities and assist with storm preparation and recovery.
Throughout the year, the VCB encourages its industry partners to formulate and periodically update a hurricane crisis plan and take measures to make sure that all of their personnel are familiar with it well in advance of a storm.
Part of the Hurricane Crisis Plan includes establishing practices and protocols for contacting and staying in touch with employees both during and following the storm’s passage. Anticipating no or spotty cell service, the VCB and its industry partners subscribe to Everbridge, a platform that provides messages and notifications to recipients over multiple communication paths, including voice, SMS, email and social media.
Among the other initiatives the VCB promotes to its hotel partners are having and periodically inspecting back-up generators; having reconstruction contracts in place with local contractors and subcontractors who will get them back in service as quickly as possible; and pre-arranging rooms at other locations for any of their own employees whose homes or apartments may have been damaged or destroyed.
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