Florida says it's evaluating storm evacuation options at Alligator Alcatraz

Alex Harris, Miami Herald on Jul 25, 2025

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MIAMI — With the peak of hurricane season only days away, Gov. Ron DeSantis defended his administration’s lack of a public hurricane evacuation plan for Alligator Alcatraz, the immigrant detention facility in the heart of the Everglades.

In a press conference at the site on Friday, the governor pushed back at criticism that the state was unprepared for a potential storm to strike the site, where detainees are housed in air-conditioned tents and staff are staying in re-purposed post-storm FEMA trailers.

“This ain’t our first rodeo,” he said. “There’s not a single place in the state that would be totally immune from having any impacts from hurricanes.”

When the facility first opened in July, Florida’s Department of Emergency Management told the Miami Herald it would be “fully prepared” for a disaster but it was still working on a formal storm plan. As of Friday, the state has not fulfilled the Herald’s public records request for the hurricane plan, nor has it provided a timeline for when it might be made available.

August marks the peak of hurricane season for Florida. Forecasters have called for another active season, with 13 to 19 named storms before the season ends on November 30.

“This stuff can withstand non-major hurricanes, Cat 1, Cat 2,” DeSantis said.

He pointed out that storms do tend to slow down once they make landfall and suggested that if a Category 3 storm were to strike Southwest Florida, the winds could potentially be below Category 2 strength by the time it got to the detention facility.

He made no mention of the potential flood risk at the facility, which was highlighted in a recent Miami-Dade-funded assessment of the site.

Kevin Guthrie, head of emergency management for the state, told media on Friday that his team recently visited several prisons in Florida to evaluate them as potential sites to evacuate detainees if a major hurricane hit.

“When we have that situation, we will have to do an evacuation, and it’s incumbent upon the Florida Division of Emergency Management, with our law enforcement partners, to be able to take care of that. So yes, we are constantly looking at what we can do based on need,” he said.

“I promise you that the hurricane guys have got the hurricane stuff covered.”

Emergency plans aren’t always set in stone, DeSantis warned. He mentioned Hurricane Milton last year, where the state assembled first responders at Tropicana Field in Tampa but ended up removing them when it was clear the storm would likely be too intense in that area. It was; the roof was ripped to shreds.