Last Stand's email to Members on June 23, 2023:

Tell the Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) ENOUGH!  They need to hear from YOU and thousands of Keys residents that we’reconcerned, we’re already at capacity, and it’s time to stop putting lives at riskby allowing more new building in the Keys.

The 24-hour hurricane evacuation mandate can be bypassed by putting more people or housing units into Phase 1 – asking them to leave at 48 hours instead of 24.  Ask the DEO not to play “funny math” with our lives!

Make your voice heard!  The DEADLINE IS FRIDAY, JUNE 30 at 5PM EDT.

1. Use this handy link for an instant email to the DEO: Send your message now.

2. Copy & Paste the information into an email instead:To : FLKeysEvac@DEO.MyFlorida.com

Subject: ENOUGH! No new ROGOs for the Keys.

Body: We’re concerned, we’re already at capacity, and it’s time to stop putting lives at risk by allowing more new building in the Keys.

Respectfully,Your Name / Concerned citizen

1. Write your own letter or email.

Send an email to FLKeysEvac@DEO.MyFlorida.com or send a letter to:

Florida Department of Economic OpportunityDivision of Community DevelopmentAttention: BCPGThe Caldwell Building107 East Madison Street, MSC-400Tallahassee, FL 32399

Be sure to copy your County or City Commissioners.  Additional information and commissioners’ emails are listed below or can be found at this link.  Then ask your friends and neighbors to do the same.

There is strength in numbers and NOW is the time to act!

Thank YOU for being a concerned citizen!  

Your Friends at Last Stand

Local Government Emails

Monroe County Commissioners: boccdis1@monroecounty-fl.gov, boccdis2@monroecounty-fl.gov,boccdis3@monroecounty-fl.gov, boccdis4@monroecounty-fl.gov, boccdis5@monroecounty-fl.gov

Key West Mayor & Commissioners: Mayor@cityofkeywest-fl.gov;DistrictI@cityofkeywest-fl.gov; DistrictII@cityofkeywest-fl.gov; DistrictIII@cityofkeywest-fl.gov; DistrictIV@cityofkeywest-fl.gov; DistrictIV@cityofkeywest-fl.gov; DistrictVI@cityofkeywest-fl.gov

Marathon City Council: council@ci.marathon.fl.us

Islamorada Mayor & City Council: buddy.Pinder@islamorada.fl.us, sharon.mahoney@islamorada.fl.us, mark.Gregg@islamorada.fl.us, elizabeth.Jolin@islamorada.fl.us, henry.Rosenthal@islamorada.fl.us

Here are some facts. 

• Our entire 2-phase Hurricane Evacuation Plan assumes we will have more than 48 hours to first evacuate all the tourists, the Navy and their families, liveaboards, mobile homes, and vacation rentals, THEN the residents will evacuate in the final 24 hours.o   The Navy, mobile homes are permanent residents and should be included in the 24-hour phase of the model.

• Vacation Rentals should be counted in the 24-hour phase of the model, as there is no hotel manager or other enforcement agency to make them evacuate.

• A significant percentage of vacant homes should be included – homeowners visit their properties throughout the hurricane season.

• The model should not assume all visitors have left on time and the roads are now open for residents!

• The model should include Regional Evacuation data – the model ends at Florida City and assumes no one else in South Florida is evacuating!

• There is no way to “enforce” who leaves or when. Human nature tells us people will leave:

• At the last possible minute, whether that’s because they’re busy securing their property or because it costs more to evacuate sooner (more nights in a hotel).

• The model assumes the same “24-hour flow rate”, yet most people don’t evacuate in the middle of the night when it’s dark or raining.

• We are already AT CAPACITY!

• The fresh water coming into our homes is already reduced due to breaks in the water pipe, which will cost $10 million per mile to replace.

• The sewage leaving our homes is fraught with problems and ravaging the nearshore waters.

  Recent news includes:

• 90,000 gallons of raw sewage leaked from the new Cudjoe Regional Waste Water Treatment plant,§  Raw sewage leaks in Tavernier just this past week,

• Continued use of shallow sewage wells leaking to nearshore waters in Marathon and several other locations.·      

  Climate change adds to the evacuation problem:

• We have sunny day flooding on our roads that can last weeks due to sea level rise.o   Category 3 – 4 – 5 hurricanes are far more frequent due to warming oceans.

• Rapid Intensification (storms escalating from tropical storms to CAT 3-4-5 hurricanes in less than 24 hours) has become commonplace – and the National Hurricane Center tells us this is something they cannot forecast. 

  Background:        ·     

• By State mandate, the Florida Keys must evacuate all of its residents 24 hours ahead of the arrival of tropical storm winds (even sooner than hurricane landfall).·  

• The DEO and local officials kept secret the fact that the 2012 model already exceeded 24 hours by 2.5 hours. The 2012 ROGO building allocations should have been reduced as a result.

• Instead, an additional 1350 ROGOs have been allocated – a 40% increase over the 2012 allocation.  And, while the courts agreed the additional ROGOs violated the state hurricane evacuation mandate, the Florida legislature over-rode this decision just this Spring.

• We have just ONE road to safety and it’s over 130 miles to the mainland.  Traffic is bad on any given day on US1, we don’t need to imagine what it looks like when the entire island chain tries to evacuate at once – many of us experienced it before Hurricane Irma.