County officials are typically quick to send visitors packing in the event of a serious storm approaching the Keys.</p><p>But Administrator Roman Gastesi says he's exploring options that may ease hurricane evacuation policies for those visitors during what are determined to be weaker storm systems.</p><p>Thousands of visitors were ordered to leave last year when tropical storms Fay and Ike threatened the Keys. But the storms passed by without incident and caused minimal damage.</p><p>"On these marginal storms, in the last couple years we have visitor evacuations during tropical storms and we're wondering if a similar situation arises this year, is it necessary," Gastesi said.</p><p>Right now, Gastesi said, the county doesn't have a specific written policy overseeing tourist or resident evacuation in the event of a hurricane. He's talked with numerous city, county and state officials about revising the county's plan of action.</p><p>"We're just taking a 25-year-old unwritten rule and discussing it. The only thing written is [Category 3] and above everyone has to go," he said. "There's been no decision made."</p><p>Gastesi said while he'd like to ease restrictions on visitors, public safety will always be the county's primary concern.</p><p>"Priority number one is safety, absolutely. It will not be compromised or jeopardized...to ensure that folks aren't unnecessarily being evacuated," Gastesi said.</p><p>Many business owners complained last year that the evacuations cost them significant tourist dollars. The Monroe County Tourist Development Council backed up that concern, reporting Tropical Storm Fay and hurricanes Gustav and Ike -- and the perceived threat of Hurricane Hanna -- cost the Keys an estimated $27.7 million in lost business.</p><p>Business owners were also upset at the perceived sensationalizing of the storms by the Weather Channel and other media outlets. The TDC even launched an extensive advertising campaign in the wake of the storms, trying to offset negative perceptions and draw tourists back to the Keys.</p><p>The science of tracking and monitoring storm systems is much more sophisticated now than in years past, which allows National Weather Service forecasters in Key West to be more certain of if and when a storm might hit the Keys.</p><p>Jon Rizzo, warning coordination meteorologist at the NWS, says most of these improvements have come since 1990.</p><p>"Ballpark in 1990, the error at 48 hours was very close to 200 nautical miles. Now we're sliding in at just under 100 for 48 hours. That's a significant improvement and it's a sustained trend," he said. "The reasons for that have to do with improvements to computer models simulating where the storm might end up."</p><p>Gastesi says it's these improvements that could possibly lead to softer evacuation policies during tropical storms.</p><p>"It has to be an extremely specific situation for us to do anything different than we've done in the past," he said.</p><p>Rizzo said while it might make sense to consider evacuations on a case-by-case basis, "hindsight is 20-20" should the wrong decision be made.</p><p>"At the time we were fairly confident [Fay] would not be stronger than a Category 1. That's a case you could look at," he said. "If you want to compare with Ike, even though it passed well to the south, at the time we would have had to take an action such as a resident evacuation we were past the point of no return to make that decision. Cases like Ike are not going to mean if we have the same situation that the county would not call an evacuation."