© 2024 WLRN
MIAMI | SOUTH FLORIDA
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

County Workers Lose Week’s Pay For Not Staffing Hurricane Shelters

Joe Cavaretta
/
South Florida Sun Sentinel
During Hurricane Dorian, 3,115 evacuees stayed in Palm Beach County shelters, including this one at the South Florida Fairgrounds Expo Center in West Palm Beach.

Palm Beach County staffers who didn’t show up for Hurricane Dorian duty could have put the public at risk. Now they’ll have to pay for it.

More than two dozen employees didn’t report to man the county’s shelters when evacuation orders were issued in anticipation of Dorian. They all have been suspended for one week without pay and could be fired if they do it again, said Human Resources Director Wayne Condry.

This was the first time employees have been disciplined for missing hurricane duty since it became mandatory a few months before Hurricane Irma in September 2017. In June of that year, the county stopped relying on American Red Cross volunteers to staff the shelters. Instead, shelters were supposed to be staffed by county and school district employees.

Read more at the Sun Sentinel.

More On This Topic