When the big one hits

James Clements
Published: June 1, 2008

When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and the Gulf Coast three years ago, cities like Houston, Atlanta and others across the Southeast were also put to the test as they scrambled to come up with plans for how to handle an influx of evacuees.

With the arrival of the 2008 hurricane season yesterday, it seems like a good time for those of us who don’t live in the immediate path of a storm to think about what role we might play when the next “big one” hits.

In a post-Katrina world, there’s little doubt that coastal residents will be more likely to heed the evacuation warnings. With our location far enough west to be out of immediate danger, but still close enough to home, Culpeper could take a leading role in forming a regional coalition of governments, businesses, churches, and others, to welcome evacuees if the next big Atlantic storm hits Virginia.

Much of the state has already been preparing for the 2008 hurricane season. Last week, residents were able to take advantage of a tax holiday on emergency items like batteries, flashlights and bottled water. And on Mother’s Day weekend, the Virginia Department of Transportation took the drastic step of actually closing eastbound traffic on Interstate 64 for a few hours in order to test the ramp gates you’ve probably only ever seen pointing skyward.

According to the (Newport News) Daily Press recap of that test, it apparently went off without much trouble:

“Virginia officials closed 72 miles of eastbound Interstate 64 from Richmond to Norfolk between 5 and 7 a.m. Sunday to practice reversing eastbound traffic to evacuate Hampton Roads before a hurricane. The exercise went according to plan and ended half an hour early, said Harry Kenyon, a spokesman with the Virginia Department of Transportation.

“Only a couple dozen motorists had to be rerouted. ‘There are always some people who don’t get the word, so there were a certain number of people who were surprised with the interstate being closed,’ Kenyon said. ‘They were either from out of town or unaware that we were doing the exercise.’”

I was in Virginia Beach that weekend for my sister-in-law’s graduation and to celebrate Mother’s Day and noticed the road warnings on the way down. Fortunately, we were back in Culpeper by Saturday night and slept through the entire drill. Of course, so did most of the residents of Hampton Roads.

VDOT was able to find the least popular time for I-64 in order to test their system. In doing so, they caused very little hassle and no disruption of life. And, at the end of the morning, VDOT was happy with the results. But perhaps the test would have been more effective if they’d tried it during a peak travel time — or at least at a time when most area residents were awake to know about it.

Having lived in that area for a half dozen years, I have serious doubts about the effectiveness of any hurricane evacuation plan. I can recall many storms that actually pulled me toward the beach for a closer look rather than heading for the exits. And I wasn’t the only one.

Two years before Hurricane Katrina, and several other storms, decimated the Gulf Coast, many Virginia Beachers rode out Hurricane Isabel, despite a mandatory evacuation order from Gov. Mark Warner. At the time, the Associated Press reported “160,000 residents” of the Hampton Roads area were told to evacuate and a little more than 10 percent of that number showed up at area shelters.

Of course, that was pre-Katrina. In our current state of consciousness, more people may be convinced to forego the hurricane parties and instead head to higher ground.
If and when that day comes, and Hampton Roads, or Northern Neck, or even Outer Banks, residents are forced to leave their homes, Culpeper should have a plan in place to make them feel welcome. The time to form a regional public-private coalition is now, while the skies are clear. 

James Clements is a Culpeper resident and independent columnist who appears each Monday.
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