Impressions

Running From Gustav

By Tim Holland

They drove everything and you could tell many of them left in a hurry. This evacuation was different from others I’ve seen and been a part of as this one was not just made up of tourists, vacationers, summer home people and the middle and upper economic residents – this one had everyone.

Our first realization that we were to be impacted by Hurricane Gustav was in checking into our hotel in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The rate was $20 more than it was two weeks earlier. Admittedly, I changed my reservation from after the Labor Day weekend to before it to run ahead of the storm but somehow I don’t think the Labor Day holiday was the reason for the change in the rate.

As anyone knows who lives along the east coast, the standard procedure, once you get a feel for the projected strength and direction of a hurricane, you book a room in a hotel about 50 to 100 miles inland and block out the dates you think you will need. If the storm hooks right or left you cancel the room by 6:00 pm and all is fine. If it turns out you only need two days instead of four, you cancel what you don’t need. Hurricanes aren’t like tornados, you know they’re coming – a long time before they arrive.

Again, this time it was different. People with cash putting it down as a deposit for a room for relatives coming from New Orleans; others doing the same only using multiple credit cards as one alone would not have enough credit available on it. These are the people who would probably have stayed behind during previous storms. Others being told they should have booked on line rather than wait until the last minute, as all the rooms were gone, responding they didn’t have a computer.

We watched the traffic as we drove west and everyone else was coming east. At one point we were the only car in the westbound lanes for as far as we could see. Trying to obtain information on the radio was completely useless until we found a public radio station broadcasting from Mississippi. Lots of country music, rock music and recorded talk shows and commercials filled the airways but no information about the storm. Public broadcasting had everything, remind me to send them a donation they earned it. Everyone coming out of Louisiana and Mississippi was being told to head east as the storm was predicted to drift to the west. Tuscaloosa was a prime target location for evacuees. I’m sure the room we vacated was filled very quickly as soon as we left, no matter what they charged for it.

Crossing Mississippi, there were cars stopped on the side of the road. Most seemed to be caravans of families and friends trying to keep track of one another as they travelled together as best they could. Then, every now and then you would see an older car with the hood up or a flat tire. These were cars not used to travelling more than twenty miles at a stretch. Cars whose one mission in life was to get someone to work and back. Cars that were now being asked to go 100 miles and just couldn’t do it.

The traffic was now all on our side of the road as Jackson, Mississippi was a prime shelter and safe location and public radio carried instruction on how to get there and where to go. Gas was becoming a problem as the Shell station where we stopped had run out of both the regular and mid-grade but the operators made the decision to sell the premium for the price of regular: $3.54 a gallon. Later in Texas we would run across a Chevron station that upped the price of regular to $4.09.

Outside of Dallas the hotel was already filled with more than 100 people that had evacuated from New Orleans. Speaking with a group of women who were surprised to see me walking down the hallway with a chocolate lab in the lead asked if the hotel took dogs and I explained they did. There were smiles all around as they brought three small dogs out from under their coats.

“We didn’t know if they were allowed or not so we weren’t going to tell anyone. We figured they’d kick us out if they found out; that’s why we were coming in the back door.” Told them not to worry; this hotel was pet friendly.

More rooms became unexpectedly available the next day when the Shreveport, Louisiana soccer team that was staying at the hotel lost their game that evening. Their heart, apparently, wasn’t in the tournament and they just wanted to get back home to Shreveport, another major evacuation point, as soon as they could.

Yes, this was different. No one was left behind this time. A number of times when the lowcountry of South Carolina was evacuated you could see the people in the cottages and trailers on and off Hilton Head watching the people leave; the same was true of the sea islands around Beaufort, South Carolina. They always stayed behind; they never felt they had an option before. If nothing else the adverse reaction to the poor planning that led to so many deaths when Katrina hit three years ago may have resulted in a good many lives being saved as Gustav came ashore.

As Hannah moves toward the East Coast, let’s hope Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina have learned their lessons from Katrina as well.

Note:

Tim Holland is a stall writer for ToTheCenter.com, an internet news magazine. He currently writes a weekly Op-Ed column for the magazine on a variety of topics. Copies of previous Op-Ed columns and Essays can be found at www.tim-holland.com. Comments are welcome and may be sent to: Admin@tim-holland.com