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Abstract:
Florida faced one of their worst disasters ever with FireStorm ’98. These wildfires brought a Presidential visit to provide moral support and caused the postponement running of the Pepsi 400 under the lights at Daytona, because the motor track was being utilized as a staging area for the responders brought in from across America to assist in the suppression efforts. With the loss of 337 homes and 33 businesses and the dry conditions continuing, Governor Chiles requested and received a Presidential Declaration of Disaster, covering 66 of the 67 counties in Florida. The evacuation of 110,000 people, including the mandatory evacuation of a county, resulted in approximately 200 injuries, yet no deaths. Some of the issues that helped create this disaster, as well as some of the ways to alleviate these problems will be discussed in this article. Originally published in the November 1999 edition of the
ASPEP Journal
.
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