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Pasco County urges residents to sign up for alerts and 'have a plan' as season begins
Summary
Pasco officials say Everbridge, Alert Pasco and social media are central to storm communications; officials urge households to prepare checklists, include pets and evacuate tens of miles when advised.
Pasco County emergency leaders told the Pasco Podcast that communication improvements and public preparedness are central to reducing harm in future storms.
Andy Fauca, Pasco County's emergency management director, said the county used the Everbridge alerting platform heavily during the 2024 season and works with its media relations team to craft messages that can be pushed countywide or targeted to specific locations. Fauca said residents can sign up for Alert Pasco on the Pasco County website; he also noted that some mobile-device alerts are pushed to phones automatically through federal channels.
"We can push it out countywide or we can even go to a specific location and just push it out in that geographic," Fauca said. He added that social media is the county's primary method for messaging during events, though power loss can reduce reach; cellular service generally remains available and is used to push alerts.
Talking about what residents should do, Fauca urged: "Please, please, please have a plan. Have a plan to get out. Make sure you have a checklist for your family. Make sure you have a checklist for your pets" including medications, IDs and vaccination records required for many shelters. He recommended evacuating "tens of miles, not hundreds of miles" and said Pasco rescued thousands during the recent storms.
Dr. Mark Bellis said giving people local, property-level information about what to expect under specific surge or rainfall scenarios is a priority; he described efforts to put modeling and visualization tools on public-facing web pages so residents can see neighborhood-level impacts.
Why it matters: Officials said clearer, localized messaging and pre-communication will help residents make faster, safer choices in a storm, particularly in neighborhoods that flooded unexpectedly in 2024.
Next steps: County officials said they will continue heavy use of alerting tools, roll out additional instrumentation to inform messaging, and pursue outreach so more residents sign up for Alert Pasco. No formal policy or vote was taken during the episode.
