Emergency Transportation Operations
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Evacuations in the News

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Evacuation operations occur throughout the nation on a daily basis. Local jurisdictions manage evacuations, whether a solitary building with 50 to 100 residents or an entire city. Expertise in evacuation planning and operations lies with local authorities. State and Federal governments can only support local jurisdictions in their efforts to safeguard their citizens through evacuations. To demonstrate the fact that evacuations constitute daily emergency operations throughout the United States, the Federal Highway Administration offers a synopsis of where the events occur and hope that peer to peer exchanges may be generated through this knowledge.

FHWA collects Google alerts on evacuations and encourages readers to use the web tool to research additional information on topics of interest. While most events occurred within the United States, FHWA will occasionally include international events of significance that offer unique perspectives on evacuation operations or that may result in after-action reports. For additional guidance on transportation-specific evacuation planning and operations, we invite you to search this web site.

The following evacuations took place during the past week.

November 9-15, 2009

Tropical Storms (TS), Hurricanes (HU), Typhoons (TY) & Cyclones (CY)

  • Cape May County, New Jersey (TS Ida and Nor 'easter)
  • Hampton Roads area (Newport News, Norfolk, Virginia Beach), Virginia (TS Ida and Nor’easter)
  • Mumbai, India (Tropical Cyclone Phyan)
  • Baldwin County, Alabama (Hurricane Ida)
  • Off-coast New Orleans, Louisiana (oil and gas platforms evacuated for Ida)
  • Kessler AFB, Biloxi, MI (Hurricane Hunter and Flying Jennie aircraft evacuated to Texas prior to Ida landfall)
  • St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Lafourche, and Jefferson parishes, Louisiana (Hurricane Ida)

Floods & Mudslides

  • Kaua'I, Hawaii
  • Juneau, Alaska (mudslides)
  • Hillside, Los Angeles, California (mudslides)
  • Salem, Virginia

Structural or Chemical Fires

  • Perth, Western Australia (factory fire)
  • Essex, England, Great Britain (apartment complex)
  • Cranberry, Pennsylvania (nursing home)
  • Dallas, Texas (nursing home)
  • Palm Bay, Florida (apartment complex)

Malevolent Acts

  • 240 villages, southern Saudi Arabia (fighting between Yemeni troops and Houthi rebels spilled over the border, with Saudis launching an offensive November 5 after Yemeni rebels seized Saudi territory along the border)
  • Bradley International Airport, Windsor Locks, Connecticut
  • Rahway, New Jersey (suspicious powder on New Jersey transit train)
  • Hellertown, Northampton County, Pennsylvania (suspicious device found)
  • Ashville, North Carolina (deliberate release of natural gas resulted in explosion and fire at and apartment complex)

Planning and Analysis

  • Alvin, Texas, students learn evacuation procedures.
  • Victorian National Party of Australia wants a database established for those that would find it difficult to evacuate during a bushfire.
  • The Philippines emergency officials are preparing for a potential mass evacuation as Mount Mayon is poised to erupt soon.
  • San José State University, San José, California, practiced a campus wide evacuation drill on November 11.
  • NAS Meridian, MI, prepared to receive evacuees from military bases along the Gulf Coast as Hurricane Ida headed for land.

Previous Week
November 2-8, 2009

Tropical Storms (TS), Hurricanes (HU), Typhoons (TY) & Cyclones (CY)

  • Port Fourchon, Lafourche Parish, Louisiana (Hurricane Ida)
  • Pensacola Beach and Perdido Key, Florida (Hurricane Ida)
  • Caribe Sur province, Nicaragua (Hurricane Ida)
  • Southern coast, Vietnam (Typhoon Mirinae)

Floods

  • Hulu Terengganu, Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia
  • Bossier, Louisiana

Brush or Wildfires

  • New Castle, New South Wales, Australia

Structural or Chemical Fires

  • Colorado Springs, Colorado (apartment fire)
  • Atlantic City, New Jersey (high-rise fire)

Hazardous Materials

  • Loveland, Symmes Township, Ohio (fireworks plant explosion)
  • Elkhart, Indiana (gas leak)
  • Columbus, Ohio (gas leak)
  • Blue Lake, Arcata, California (gas leak)
  • Grand Cane, DeSoto Parish, Louisiana (gas well blowout)
  • Freeport, Texas (leaking pipes at Dow Chemical Plant)
  • Madison, Wisconsin (chemical spill at assisted living facility)

Malevolent Acts

  • Cumming, Forsyth County, Georgia (toy grenade brought in bomb squad)
  • Afghanistan (U.N. workers evacuating due to worsening security situation)
  • Burnaby, British Columbia Province, Canada (bomb found near high school)
  • Silver City, New Mexico (bomb threat to high school-4th since late September)

Planning and Analysis

  • Community-based education and awareness programs minimized the death toll from the recent Samoan tsunami, though there are still ways to improve the warning and evacuation process, according to a team of researchers that traveled to Samoa last month.
  • Girl's Girl Scout gold project involves preparing for evacuating horses and caring for them during fires.
  • Green Bay, Appleton, and Oshkosh, Wisconsin, to announce a new evacuation plan that resulted from a governor's mandate to update evacuation plans following Hurricane Katrina.
  • Gary, Indiana, conducted school bus evacuation drill.
  • Des Moines Police Chief Roger Baker told Des Moines, IO, council members on October 29 that 25,000 to 40,000 residents may have to evacuate due to flooding of the Green River and problems with the Howard Hanson Dam. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is attempting to forecast the potential damage of flooding, but a longer term fix of the dam is a long way off.

Archives

An archived listing of Evacuations in the News.
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