Two major hurricanes swept through the Southeast last year, causing catastrophic damage, widespread power outages and devastation.
These weather events greatly disrupted the educational system in several states, but student transportation departments did not go on hiatus. At the STN EXPO East Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, transportation directors from the areas affected by severe 2024 hurricanes last fall discussed their responses to the historic natural events and where they are on the road to recovery.
The panel was facilitated by Derek Graham, an industry consultant who has over three decades of experience. He was state director of pupil transportation with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction for 21 years as well as a past president of the National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services. He was joined by Jeremy Stowe, director of transportation for Buncombe County Schools in the Asheville, North Carolina, area, and Laura Hill, general manager of transportation at Hillsborough County Public Schools in Tampa, Florida.
Hill opened with her experiences, first with Hurricane Helene and then with Hurricane Milton 11 days later. She oversees transportation for a large district, where 80,000 students are transported every day over 800-plus routes.
Hurricanes are nothing new for Florida, which Hill said routinely can include evacuations using school buses and using school campuses as shelters. However, Helene was called the “100 Year Storm” for the upper Gulf Coast of Florida, with historic levels of flooding, power outages and infrastructure damage.
School closures for weather events, she explained, normally lasted three to four day. But in the aftermath of Helene, Hillsbourough schools were closed for two weeks.
She explained that because of Florida’s experience with heavy winds, the school buses had already been parked close together to minimize wind damage. She said her staff also had scheduled fuel deliveries before Helene, but because of the damage didn’t have an opportunity to refuel before Milton hit. Infrastructure damage, mainly from trees falling on power lines and road closures due to sinkholes created a prolonged school closure for the Florida district.
Buncombe County Schools did not have a hurricane plan, said Stowe. On Sept. 26, when Helene began, Stowe said eight school buses were on standby to aid with evacuations. By 4 a.m. the next day, the fire marshal called and said he needed more buses and that first responders didn’t realize how bad this storm would be. Stowe continued that this began an extended effort on his part and that of his team to work side by-side with first responders and emergency management personnel.
“We had an opportunity to show up,” he said of the transportation department. “We’re the ones who show up when no one else does.”
He continued that four “R’s” that come into play with any catastrophic natural disaster: Response, Recovery, Reopening and Relationships.
Even Stowe’s college-aged son joined the response team, having recently acquired his school bus driving endorsement. He drove fuel trucks to fire departments. Stowe explained that unlike some other districts, Buncombe does not have a central fueling station. Instead, fueling trucks drive directly to school buses to refuel them. Stowe said he “became very popular” with emergency management teams as he had a store of fuel in supply.
One important process to remember, said Stowe, is that during rescue and response efforts make sure to track all activities with photos and thorough documentation. This is often needed soon after the initial response phase to receive reimbursement from FEMA via other aid organizations.
“When my CFO calls, I have the receipts of everything we did, who asked for help, why I sent it and what we did,” he added.
Stowe also noted that with many homes destroyed, the number of displaced students needing transportation soared to 1,200 from the normal list of 80 to 100 students who qualify under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. He continued that he meticulously tracked what resources were used to transport the additional displaced students (which included hiring contractor EverDriven), since only storm-related costs were to be reimbursed.
Meanwhile, the standard McKinney-Vento students remained the district’s budgetary and operational responsibility. For students with special needs or disabilities, he said transportation made sure to transport them to and from critical appointments, such as medical needs.
Creating relationships with first responders and key district personnel was crucial, said Stowe.
“Be that shining face of your department, know who you need to know,” he said.
To create seamless cooperation with emergency management teams, he advised transportation directors to all take the FEMA ICS-100 course, which is an “introduction to the Incident Command System.” He explained that any federal or local government agency will follow this protocol exactly, and knowing how the command structure works can allow transportation to smoothly join process.
The recovery process included crucial input from transportation, as Stowe, Hill and Grant each noted that there is constant pressure to reopen schools and give students a return to normalcy as soon as possible. With many families still without power or low on food, those resources can be provided at school.
Stowe said his drivers were recruited and paid to drive their routes and identify roads and bus stops that were not serviceable, as well as provide visual inspections of damage from flooding and downed power lines.
“You don’t realize how much a part of the community you and your school buses are,” said Stowe. “You are the backbone of the community.”
Buncombe County didn’t have a protracted recovery, but rebuilding is ongoing, as many roads are still not drivable. Stowe said that has led to routing complications and subsequent parent requests for routes that cannot be safely done.
“For a road to be open for a school bus route, the bus must be able to travel in its assigned lane without crossing the double yellow line into oncoming traffic,” he explained.
Graham said that in his experience with North Carolina storms, administrators often want a book afterward that is filled with an exact plan of what to do when a storm hits. But as he and Stowe both stated, response is a moving puzzle. Instead of trying to create a detailed plan for every scenario, Stowe said his mindset for transportation is to, “Stay in our lane and know who I need to move and how I need to move them. It doesn’t matter if it’s for a shooter or a gas break, we just need to move them.”
Transportation accomplishes this by keeping track of how many people are in any given school building and how many buses would be needed to evacuate those individuals, Stowe shared.
Attendees in the audience shared their experiences with hurricane response, which also included similar experiences of extended school closures, power outages and damages. One attendee from Colorado also recommended the ICS-700 course, as that is what the National Guard also uses, and knowing how it works can help transportation sync communication with emergency management.
As Stowe explained, “Run the same models within the district so we’re not speaking two different languages. Cut and paste your team into those larger structures.”
Bill Wen, senior director of transportation services at Orange County Public Schools in Orlando Florida, said his district created a District Incident Management Team that includes leadership from different district departments to coordinate emergency management responses.
All three panelists and many of the attendees noted that before disaster struck, they thought it would never happen to them or in their area. To be equipped for a natural disaster, preparations can be made, training can be done, and directors can start building relationships with local support systems.
Related: Updated: The Aftermath of Hurricane Helene Across the Southeast U.S.
Related: (STN Podcast E231) Come Together: Florida Hurricane Fallout, NAPT Conference Recap
Related:In Case of an Emergency
