Eduardo J. Padrón
President
Office of the President
300 N.E. Second Avenue
Miami, Florida 33132-2297
305-237-3316
epadron@mdc.edu
Message from the President
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Preparing for Natural Disasters
As Tropical Storm Fay drenched Miami and our surrounding communities this week, I was reminded that Sunday marks the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Andrew, the last Category 5 hurricane to hit South Florida. While Fay's impact was not as severe as originally anticipated, and certainly not as destructive as Andrew, the storm served as a great exercise to test our emergency operations.
MDC Alerts -- the College's free emergency text-messaging service -- greatly enhanced the speed and success of our emergency communications. My thanks to MDC's emergency planning and implementation team for their diligence during Tropical Storm Fay.
Forecasters have continued to stress that 2008 will be an unusually active Atlantic hurricane season. Please use this time to review emergency plans at the workplace and home so they may be quickly implemented, if necessary.
This is a busy time for the entire College community as we plan for the start of the new academic year and I would like to thank all of you for your hard work.
I await next week with enthusiasm.
Thank you.
Eduardo