Cape Coral city leaders take part in mock hurricane training

CAPE CORAL, Fla. – More than 100 people, from top city leaders to volunteers, took part in an intense disaster training simulation at the Cape Coral Emergency Operations Center Wednesday.

The scenario presented to the group: How would the city respond if a Category 2 hurricane (in this case, “Hurricane Kate”) swept through Southwest Florida?

“We built unique exercise opportunities that helps this community test the capabilities that it has,” said Paul Ganem with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Wednesday marked the third day of a special week-long training exercise put on by FEMA.

“This is the first time FEMA’s been down here to do this exercise. This is an outstanding opportunity for our city officials and our stakeholders… because we haven’t really been impacted by a disaster in over ten years,” said Jesse Spearow with Cape Coral’s Emergency Management division.

Multiple city departments worked together to communicate updates on situations like street flooding, damaged areas, and medical emergencies.

“You have to deal with law enforcement… search and rescue… public works and flooding… hospitals and sheltering,” said Holly Smith with FEMA.

“I think we’ve learned a lot. I think there’s a lot of things that have come out of it and there’s been some things we need to tighten up, it’s just been a real good exercise to go through,” said Cape Coral Mayor Marni Sawicki.

Officials from Lee, Collier and Charlotte counties also attended the training.