An Evacuation Route next to a river

ManaSota-88, Inc.  a 501.c3 Public Health and Environmental Organization

AN EVACUATION ROUTE NEXT TO A RIVER River Road is a major hurricane evacuation route for south Sarasota County, Englewood and north Charlotte County. It is a great example of the historic and current  lack of thought given to hurricane evacuation when approving development. River Road is apply named as a large portion of the road parallels Myakka River, which makes it a very undesirable hurricane evacuation route. River Road is woefully inadequate to safely move residents out of harm’s way. The increase in residential density that has occurred adjacent to River Road leaves existing residents of Sarasota and Charlotte counties extremely vulnerable to the devastating effects of a hurricane. There are still thousands of homes planned for the area. There is no reason to continue to compound the mistakes of the past.  River Road already creates a dangerous hurricane evacuation situation, increasing density along River Road will not correct the mistakes of the past, it will put more people in harm’s way. The City of North Port previously expressed significant concerns regarding River Road as a hurricane evacuation route: There should be concerns regarding the impacts to River Road, this is a failing roadway and adding ever more trips just makes the failures that much more imminent as this is a hurricane evacuation route serving North Port, unincorporated Sarasota County, and Englewood… Finally, there should be concern whether or not there is the need for more home sites in southern Sarasota County at this time. The West Villages Improvement District in North Port has been approved for 15,000 Dwelling Unit's (DU's), Sarasota National in unincorporated Sarasota County has approximately 1900 DU's approved, and Stoneybrook at Venice has a similar number, therefore, almost 20,000 potential DU's have been approved to be located in roughly a 2-mile area. River Road still is and will always be an inappropriate hurricane evacuation route. But this problem could have been avoided. Hurricane evacuation should have been a priority in approving any development that relies on River Road as an evacuation route.

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