Parking Garage Access

When hurricanes have approached in the past, the city has tried to assist residents by opening parking garages from the evening before the day the hurricane is expected to make landfall, to the morning after the day the hurricane makes landfall, and waiving the parking fee during that period.  This allows residents to move second vehicles to the garage to save them from possible flooding.

For example, Hurricane Helene made landfall on Thursday, September 26, 2024. On Wednesday morning, September 25, the city parking director sent an email saying:

The city owned parking garages will be free Wednesday night until Friday morning. The barrier gates will be raised no later than 9pm Wednesday 9/25 and will remain up until Friday 9/27 at noon.

Anyone that enters the garage before 9pm Wednesday will have to pull a ticket to gain entry. However, customers will not be charged unless they exit after 12pm on Friday.

But, during hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024, we learned that these accommodations did not work for barrier island residents.  

Here is what we learned from the 2024 hurricanes:

(1) You have to take evacuation alerts seriously

We heard many harrowing stories from residents who stayed on the island, or who didn't evacuate far enough away:

• rising flood waters topped sand bags and came in through windows and pushed sewage up through toilets
• people waded through several feet of flood water, in the pitch dark, to spend the night in their vehicle in the parking garage
• people couldn't leave the islands the next day and had no water, power, cell phone, or internet, and no communication with the outside world
• people were kicked out of a downtown hotel at the last minute
• windows were blown in at an airport hotel and staff went door to door instructing guests to lean their mattresses against the windows

(2) You should evacuate as early as possible

Of the people who did evacuate, the longer they waited to leave, the worse the traffic was, and the harder it was to find a hotel. It has been said that the fundamental purpose of government is public safety. Accordingly, the city should do more to encourage residents to evacuate and to do so immediately when evacuation alerts are issued.

(3) The St. Armands parking garage filled up early

Some barrier island residents who waited for the city's announcement got turned away from the St. Armands Parking Garage because it was already full.  We since learned that property managers at Longboat Key condominiums had already moved many vehicles into the garage.  Non-Sarasota vehicles took spots away from city residents and taxpayers.

(4) You should not return until it is safe to do so

Hurricane Milton damaged the Little Ringling Bridge and residents were not able to return to the barrier islands until several days after landfall.

To encourage people to evacuate early, we think people should be allowed to move vehicles into the garage more than one day before a storm, and that the city should not charge for parking from that point until a day after the city clears residents to return to the barrier islands.  City residents need to know that their vehicle won't be ticketed or towed when they do this.

Until and unless the city figures something out, it will continue to be the "wild west" where nobody knows for sure what the rules are, and where city residents, business owners, and tax payers who delay their evacuation to wait for and follow the instructions in the last minute announcements risk losing their spots to non-resident opportunists.

Requests of the city:

1. Allow people to move vehicles to city parking garages as soon as evacuation alerts are issued. This means no tickets and no towing if vehicles are left there for multiple days following an evacuation alert.
2. Since people should be encouraged to evacuate far away, give them a reasonable amount of time to return and retrieve their vehicle without tickets or towing once the city declares that it is safe to do so. Perhaps this is 2-3 days? (Note: the safe to return declaration might come earlier for downtown garages than for the St. Armands garage.)
3. Continue to waive parking garage fees, but do so from the time an evacuation alert is issued to that same 2-3 days after the city declares that it is safe to return. Even if the new ticketless technology would allow the city to charge $24 per day for parking, remember that the idea is to encourage people to evacuate, to evacuate far enough away, and to evacuate immediately. Waiving the fee encourages this. At least waive it for city residents and taxpayers.
4. Ideally, priority parking garage access during an evacuation alert should be given to city residents and taxpayers. 
5. In the St. Armands Parking Garage, people should be warned that previous flood waters have reached the first level and the ramp to the second level. Perhaps these spots should be completely blocked off?