“Run for Cover!” Republican Gov. Evacuation Plan for Gulf Coast Residents

by Ana Maria



With Hurricane Dean tearing through the Caribbean, Gulf Coast residents watch the weather reports praying that whatever Mother Nature does, she does elsewhere. We’re still a long way off from recovering from Hurricane Katrina, which demolished the area two years ago. Many of our families—mine, included—have put into place evacuation plans that we had never before felt a need to have BK, Before Katrina.

The Associated Press reported that Mississippi’s Republican Governor Haley Barbour stated

“people should think about where they will go if an evacuation is ordered and how they'll travel.”

Oh, so that’s it? What is this?! Barbour’s admission that he has no evacuation plan?

Maybe Barbour is taking a page out of Karl Rove’s scare-‘em-half-to-death political playbook. After all, it is an election year for the governor’s mansion here in Mississippi.

Instead of real, effective, and efficient homeland security, however, Barbour decided to squander public dollars on little more than election-year posturing. Mississippi’s Republican Governor sent out a pre-recorded message to

“some 70,000 land-based phone lines in the three southernmost Coast counties Saturday morning. The message reminded locals a hurricane was in the Caribbean, and now is the time to pay attention to weather reports and have a hurricane evacuation route in mind, as well as to load up on supplies.”

Like we don’t know that. We’ve been through a few hurricanes in our day, and believe me, we’re watching the weather closely.
Click here to listen to Barbour's call to Gulf Coast residents telling us "not to panic." [Call courtesy of John Leek.]

Rather than election year posturing using fear that Karl Rove tells Republicans to instill in voters, how’s about something more important and effective for the situation at hand. Like what, you ask? Well, you know, homeland security kinds of things. The real kind, that is.

What A Homeland Security Plan Could Include
If the governor were so inclined—and apparently Barbour is not, he could have set up emergency hurricane evacuation hot lines staffed with calm, cool, collected, and well-trained individuals from right here in South Mississippi, good folks who provide information fellow South Mississippians need to keep us safe during the stormy hurricane season. These hotlines could provide a much-needed service to the Gulf Coast’s residents and business owners.

In addition, staffing these hotlines with local people provides much-needed revenue into the coffers of Katrina’s families who could use the income. Nothing like a good paying job to help buoy a person out of feeling totally depressed or a family out of its financial crisis, both of which are major problems throughout the region. The only people getting wealthy off of recovery efforts seem to be those with close ties to the White House or to Barbour himself.

To help keep our families safe and secure, hotline operators could provide important critical pieces of information. For example, operators could provide a list of items (children’s birth certificates, social security cards, driver’s license, medicines, doctors’ names, etc.) that everyone should have with them regardless of whether they go to a local safe haven or evacuate outside of the area.

For those who are need a local safe haven for shelter, hotline operators could be armed with the following critical pieces of information.

The closest places we can go for safety complete with addresses and directions on how to get there. This would require that the governor’s homeland security people would have scoured the area to locate and negotiate the use of the facility for this extremely important emergency usage.

Phone numbers to call to obtain a ride to the nearby safe havens that our responsible government has secured. This would require more organizing and negotiating with folks on the ground as well as finding out an approximate number of people that would request this important evacuation assistance.

A list of things that should be brought to the safe havens: (i.e. bedding and the like). Depending on where folks are going to ride out a storm, different items would be required and prohibited. We will need to know which is which. Through his emergency management people, the governor should ensure that this kind of information is available to us.

Barbour’s administration could send out tape-recorded messages to the homes with phone service informing South Mississippians of these hot lines staffed with wonderful homegrown folks providing this much needed service.

There may be plenty of Mississippians who are in a similar position as Keisha, the young single mother with two children and no car with which to evacuate on her own. Katrina ruined Keisha’s car, and she has not been able to replace it.

When she was talking with Democratic Gubernatorial nominee John Eaves the other day, I heard her tell Eaves that FEMA gave her $3,000 for all of her belongings, those of her two young children, and her car. Goodness knows that even if she had forgone replacing any clothes, bedding, toys, or books for her children, $3,000 would not have purchased a safe and reliable vehicle for her and her children. My heart went out to her as she was talking with Eaves and WLOX-TV 13, an ABC affiliate located in Biloxi, Miss.

The governor’s evacuation plan would also need to address how to keep safe those who are too sick to move, the disabled, and the elderly. These Mississippians need safety, too.

It’s been two years since Katrina. Plenty of billions of dollars have made their way from Washington, DC, to Jackson, Miss. With Hurricane Dean blowing its way through the ocean waters, none of us need more hot air from some high-ranking Republican government official.

Where are Mississippi’s coastal evacuation plans? Surely someone somewhere got federal money to create them. So where are they?

Rather than describing a well-though out deliberate plan of action to protect the Gulf Coast and its residents, Barbour announced “No government is big enough to do everything for everybody.”

What a cop out. No one is asking our government to do everything for everybody. We do ask it to do some things for some people. And those “some people” includes regular families with regular lives. No matter how minimalist some one thinks that they want our government to be, when it comes to homeland security, we expect America’s public officials to act like we’re the number one nation on the planet.

Apparently, Barbour hasn’t figured out that homeland security requires more than screaming “Run for cover!”


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