An interesting article sent to me by someone in Houma, Louisiana. Their local paper carried a piece this week about plans to improve the evacuation process in southern Louisiana. Highway 90, a main thoroughfare through the area was a bottleneck last September as Hurricane Ivan steamed pass Southeast Louisiana heading toward the Alabama/NW Florida coast. A trip to Lafayette from southern Terrebonne parish around Grand Isle took over six hours. Usually, the trip would take less than two hours.
The new plan, which took $7.5 million to develop (that’s another story) calls for a mandatory evacuation of residents south of the intracoastal waterway in Terrebonne, Lafourche and other southern Louisiana parishes fifty hours in advance of an approaching Category Three hurricane.
The rest of the coastal parishes would be under mandatory evacuation forty hours before expected landfall. Contraflow, or the process where all highway lanes are turned to one way away from the coast, would be implemented thirty hours before expected landfall. There is a great deal of coordination between the states of Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama about contraflow on the major interstates.
One parish official criticized the plan, saying that it does not specify which routes residents of certain areas are to use, but leaves that up to individual choice. He believes tat people in certain towns and locations should be restricted to using specified routes only.
Hurricane season begins on June 1 and it is good to see more and more planning by civil defense officials in coastal areas. We will likely once again see an active season since we continue to be in a high period of activity. There is a documented pattern that alternates between higher than normal and lower normal activity every 25-40 years. That and the fact that no El Nino is expected to be in place this year.
The new plan, which took $7.5 million to develop (that’s another story) calls for a mandatory evacuation of residents south of the intracoastal waterway in Terrebonne, Lafourche and other southern Louisiana parishes fifty hours in advance of an approaching Category Three hurricane.
The rest of the coastal parishes would be under mandatory evacuation forty hours before expected landfall. Contraflow, or the process where all highway lanes are turned to one way away from the coast, would be implemented thirty hours before expected landfall. There is a great deal of coordination between the states of Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama about contraflow on the major interstates.
One parish official criticized the plan, saying that it does not specify which routes residents of certain areas are to use, but leaves that up to individual choice. He believes tat people in certain towns and locations should be restricted to using specified routes only.
Hurricane season begins on June 1 and it is good to see more and more planning by civil defense officials in coastal areas. We will likely once again see an active season since we continue to be in a high period of activity. There is a documented pattern that alternates between higher than normal and lower normal activity every 25-40 years. That and the fact that no El Nino is expected to be in place this year.
on April 17, 2005, 9:00 am
Yeah.... I would like to know why in the "SAM HILL" it takes $7.5 million to develop a mandatory evacuation route?
Chuck
PS: By the way, today (4/17/05) is JBE birthday.
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