Evacuation Plans
A few months ago, my husband and I were heading to a football game at a local university. A couple miles away from the exit, we noticed one lane of the interstate was completely stopped by all the football traffic while the other 3 lanes of the interstate had slowed considerably, presumably to gawk at the stopped traffic on the interstate. As we were sitting in the traffic, I realized that while about 65,000 people were headed to the football game, we had passed several cities whose populations greatly surpassed the number of people headed to the game. What if there had been a local emergency and several cities were forced to evacuate? If a football game could cause such traffic congestion, how would we fare in a mass evacuation?
Part of preparation is educating yourself. You need to know the area you live in well. Know the back roads, shortcuts, and other options. We have friends who live in Texas who were part of the mass evacuation from Hurricane Rita. Because people had so recently seen the devastation from Hurricane Katrina, people were frantic to get out. Many cars ran out of gas sitting on interstate roads, waiting for traffic to move. Our friends spent 5 hours in their car, only getting 3 miles before they decided to turn back and wait out the storm at home, rather than being stuck in their car.
Know what options you have for evacuating. Contact your city, county, and state officials to find out what the evacuation routes are and what assistance may be provided by law enforcement or state department of transportation. Ask questions now so that you will be ready with the right information should you need it.
