Dear Captiva residents, property owners and friends,
This is to update you on work progressing on Captiva and to solicit your help.

Most important is to ask you to attend a meeting at 10:00 Friday, July
8th in the Wakefield Room at Tween Waters for Hurricane Response Preparation

We have been meeting with Captiva and Lee County resources to put together
resources to assist professionals in the event of a hurricane that hits Captiva.
Our objective is to supplement the Lee County Emergency response plans to
insure that Captiva residents and property owners have good information
during an emergency and that Captivans have the ability to identify,
communicate and resolve issues for the island and residents. Additionally, to
provide volunteers to aid in communication and structural safety inspection
following an emergency.

We will be meeting today with South Seas Representatives, who have put
together a comprehensive plan for the resort. Tomorrow we will meet with the
Sanibel City Managers, the Sanibel and Captiva Fire Chiefs, representatives
from the Lee County Sheriff's department and representatives from the Lee
County Emergency Response Operations. We made a presentation to the
community who attended the Captiva Planning Panel meeting today.

Last year there were issues in responding to Hurricane Charley that Lee
County has worked to improve upon. In particular, Captivans in southwest Florida
had difficulty meeting and getting resolution to Captiva specific issues. There
was a great deal of difficulty in getting accurate reporting from the media and
on web sites and it was challenging to get good information to people outside
southwest Florida. Here are some of the things Lee County and others have
put in place to help improve responses:

1. Geographic Unified Command and teams to support it. We are linked
for this purpose with Sanibel, thus the need to clarify how they will include
Captiva in their plans.
2. Better incorporation of media in briefings
3. Improved computer software for identification and resolution of
incidents.
4. More satellite phones available. (the cell phones did not work for first
responders)
5. Reverse 911 replaced.(This is the system Lee County uses to call
residences for evacuation or other emergencies)
6. More Lee County employees assigned to jobs following the hurricane.
7. A significant amount of learning and sharing across Florida within the
Fire, Sheriff and county organizations.

Having said this...all incidents will have unique issues to resolve. We are
focussing on putting in place a process to identify, communicate and resolve
issues.

Attached are a draft of a supplemental emergency plan where volunteers can
help and a weekly schedule of help needed. We specifically need volunteers
for each week from now through October. We need two volunteers each
week to take responsibility for answering phones and passing along
information about Captiva. We expect to have an 800 number which we will
communicate when it is in place. One volunteer would work 10am-3pm, the
second 3-8pm. A third volunteer is needed to manage the meeting place for
Captivans. This would be located off island and be a central pre designated
locations for Captivans to come together and share issues and solutions.

John Bates has a special volunteer opportunity. He needs people to act as
Structural Safety Inspectors. These are people who would come onto the
island soon after the first responders. Their task would be to search each
building for dead or injured citizens and to post those structures that are
damaged or uninhabitable. He needs people who are willing to go through
training and to be in the area within a day of a disaster. He prefers people with
some building expertise, but will work with all volunteers to get needed
training. He needs a net total of 8-10 volunteers. A total of 14-16 trained volunteers would be required to achieve the net number. Let us know if you are interested and we will pass on your names.

You will note that one thing we do not intend to do is start a new email list or
web site. We will pass on information to existing lists. If you have a favorite list
or web site from which you have received reliable information in the past, let us
know what it is and we will include relevant lists in our mailing. We will also provide
web sites to Lee County Emergency operations to establish links. Also
attached is an email version of a survey Lee County Emergency operations is
doing to improve communications. Please take a few minutes to fill it out.
Email this to David Saniter at daves@leegov.com or send to the Lee County Division of Public Safety, 2665 Ortiz Ave., PO Box 398, Fort Myers, FL 33902-0398 attn David Saniter.

As we write this a tropical depression Dennis is being tracked in the
Caribbean. We hope all of this is an exercise. But we all learned last year that
we need to be prepared for the worst. Please volunteer if you can. Look at your calendar and see when you can help with the needs we outlined
above. Come to the meeting on Friday, if you can.

Doris Holzheimer dholzheimer@earthlink.net, 239 472-1978 (this week)513 871-6822
Mike Mullins mmullins@comcast.net 239 395-3546