BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Monitor Editor
KEYSTONE HEIGHTS— Clay County’s emergency management director, said that although some accuse him of being the Chicken Little of the county, constantly proclaiming the sky is falling, his true intent is to preach preparation for emergencies, so residents will not panic when disasters strike.
John Ward told the Keystone Heights Rotary Club during its Wednesday, July 27 meeting that residents who did not heed his advice five years ago faced dire circumstances.
The director reminded his audience of Hurricane Irma, which moved through the area in 2017 and brought severe flooding to Black Creek.
He said that because residents ignored evacuation orders, the county had to rescue 368 people and 79 animals from rooftops and front porches after the storm.
Ward added that most Clay County residents are overconfident in their abilities to respond to a hurricane because of their prior experiences.
“If you talk to people, they say they’ve been through Hurricane Irma, they’ve been through Hurricane Matthew, they’ve been through Hurricane Debbie and all the other laundry list of storms that we’ve had here within the county,” he said. “But what I try to remind folks is Clay County has not had sustained tropical storm-force winds since Dora in 1964. A lot of the systems were subtropical when they arrived here and were falling apart when they came through. We still had significant events from them, generally electric utilities, trees on homes, and flooding.”
Ward added that although the Lake Region is not susceptible to the flooding that other areas of the county are at risk for, he said the older houses in the Keystone Heights-Melrose area could be significantly damaged with the arrival of a Category 1 or 2 hurricane.
A dean of emergency management
With his 27 years of experience in public safety, Ward is one of the deans of emergency management in Florida.
He said the most common misconception people have about his county department is confusing it with FEMA: the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Clay County Emergency Management is responsible for coordinating the county’s response to any event that requires the resources of more than one county agency. Events include storms, mass shootings, pandemics, wildfires, extreme temperatures, and hazardous materials releases.
Last year Ward’s department took the lead in coordinating the county’s response to an animal cruelty case in which officials rescued 270 animals and housed them for around eight weeks at the county fairgrounds.
During the Rotary meeting, County Commissioner Betsy Condon said Ward, a former Keystone Heights resident who now lives in Clay Hill, often leads statewide seminars on emergency management and has turned down many offers to work in larger communities.
She added that his role after Irma in coordinating the $10 million pickup of yard waste generated by the storm was an unheralded but massive achievement.
Airport manager Maria Searcy added that the emergency management director, the husband of Bradford High School Principal Angela Ward, has been vital in planning significant airport events.
Partnerships lead to success.
Ward said the county’s success in dealing with emergencies has pivoted on the partnerships between county departments and other organizations like the school district, Clay Electric Cooperative, and state agencies.
He added that during the COVID-19 pandemic, he worked closely with Florida Department of Health Clay County Health Officer Heather Huffman to stand up testing and immunization sites and to keep the public informed about the pandemic.
“We’re not resource-heavy like Jacksonville, Orlando, anything like that, but we have partnerships, and when we make the call, we have everybody come to the table,” he said.
