Georgians invited to evacuate the coast before Hurricane Dorian

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BRUNSWICK, GA. –

Evacuate, even if you're tired of evacuating from year to year.

That's what Governor Brian Kemp told residents on Monday during his visit to Brunswick and Savannah, two of many coastal communities that could face life-threatening winds and floods as early as Wednesday, when Hurricane Dorian could reach Georgia after traveling the shores of Florida.

"If you decide not to evacuate, I want to be clear, you'll be alone if first responders can not reach you," Kemp said in Brunswick. "Please do not take this risk if you are able to evacuate."

Many people have begun to prepare and move inland. But not everyone was ready to leave, in the uncertainty surrounding Dorian and his proximity to the Georgian coast.

Kemp Sunday night ordered evacuations for residents to the east of I-95 in six coastal counties. The affected Georgian coast stretches from St. Marys, in Camden County, north of the border with Florida, to Savannah, in Chatham County, on the border with South Carolina . Evacuations were scheduled to begin Monday afternoon.

The National Hurricane Center was reported at 11 pm the Category 4 storm had winds of 130 km / h, down from 165 mph before, but remained extremely dangerous and with gusts of up to 160 km / h. During most of Monday, the storm traveled 1 mph, slowing completely late in the day north of Grand Bahama Island. Nevertheless, Dorian should reach Florida Tuesday night, then "dangerously close to the coast of Georgia and South Carolina Wednesday night and Thursday," said the hurricane center.

Hurricane monitoring has been extended to the entire coast of Georgia. The region is preparing for 4 to 8 inches of rain this week, including 10 inches in remote areas.

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RELATED: Dorian hits the Bahamas, heading for the American coast

In Brunswick, about 100 people spent their lives in garbage bags and bed sheets waiting for two school buses in Glynn County to be evacuated to Columbus. They were waiting in a mall with a Winn-Dixie covered with anti-hurricane shutters for buses as they could not evacuate for cost or handicap reasons.

Gloria Van Cleave was there with her husband, their two sons and Midnight, a black cat that she saved a few weeks ago.

Ethan, his 12-year-old sports enthusiast, brought two footballs, two basketballs and a soccer ball. Ethan was scared.

"We live in a mobile home park. And we may not have anything to go home, "he said.

Her mother, 42, said they had never experienced a hurricane and did not feel safe driving them to their mobile home near a stream.

But in Savannah, the time set by the evacuation order from Monday at noon has passed and left without apparent haste to leave the city.

Savannah officials asked the firefighters to put protective shutters on the windows of City Hall in the downtown area, which, aside from the sight of the black shutters and the occasional closed shop, appeared to be relatively normal Monday afternoon. People wore shopping bags while walking from store to store. The elderly were sitting in the green squares of the park that dotted the city and stood on the ground like a friendly breeze swinging tufts of Spanish moss into the oaks overhanging their heads.

The people in the Chatham County Emergency Operations Center plotted to help those who could not help getting out of the evacuation zone. Buses began to drive to a shelter in Augusta, where people with disabilities and old people boarded for free until the storm. On Tuesday morning, more and more buses go inland, carrying other residents who, for whatever reason, had nowhere to go outside of Savannah or no way to get there, "said Randall Matthew, emergency preparedness manager for Chatham.

"Right now, we are really driving the needle with this storm," Matthew said. "It could go," Man, it was close, "to something really awful."

PHOTOS: Coastal Georgians Prepare For Hurricane Dorian

Dennis Jones, director of Chatham Emergency Services, said officials were also planning to evacuate areas of the county located west of I-95. He said a decision on this would be announced Tuesday.

At least some county residents seemed to take the evacuation order seriously, as evidenced by a backup of several kilometers on I-16 on the outskirts of the city. But the backup copy soon disappeared and the loaded cars pressed towards the west. The bedbugs of love, a staple of late summer in South Georgia, perished on their windshield, but their carcass was washed away by windshield blades that swayed against the rain.

At the Pooler in nearby Savannah, Savannah's Pooler, customers supplied themselves with plywood and gas tanks.

John Shivas, 66, who lives in the evacuation zone, wrapped a new generator in a blue tarp in the back of his van. He had planned to stay at home unless Dorian's planned runway suddenly set up in the interior. He said that he stayed at home during Hurricane Matthew.

"If you leave, you will not know when you will come back," said Shivas. "They said last time the people who stayed were stupid, but those who remained helped clean the streets so the evacuees could come back on Monday. If everybody evacuated, you probably would not come back until Wednesday or Thursday.

On Tybee Island, the popular tourist destination that has experienced regular flooding during storms in recent years, Dorian's approach seemed to detract from Labor Day fun. Many restaurants and shops were closed on Monday afternoons and residents were thinking about evacuating.

Fred Mackey, 72, was in the IGA grocery store parking lot in the United States of America 80, the main street, and told most people that he knew about it. intend to leave on Tuesday. Assuming that the forecast does not suddenly start to improve for Tybee, Mackey will probably be one of those fleeing to the heights.

"I do not believe in standing in front of a train, nor do I believe in standing in front of a hurricane," he said. "There are many places to run and hide here."

In Camden County, St. Marys, the southernmost coastal city of the state, with a population of 18,000, business leaders spent the stormy Labor Day preparing their storefronts with bags. sand and plywood.

C.B. Yadav, owner of Cumberland Inn and Suites in St. Marys, said that about 80% of his employees were gone, most of them evacuating on Monday.

"They do not want to wait until the last minute," he said.

Yadav, 42, said his wife and two children were traveling to Atlanta, as they had done during the last two hurricanes, so he could focus on his business.

"It's scary," he said. "We do not know what will happen."

Yadav said he had between 20 and 25 people in the hotel, a mix of employees and rescuers during the storm, and that he remained free. The hotel has 107 rooms in all.

Director Shannon Disanto and her family spent Labor Day loading everything into their store, Market on the Square, located at a half-football pitch on the St. Marys River in a U-Haul.

Disanto, 37, and about seven others, planned to drive the van three miles from the hinterland as they expected a third consecutive year of hurricane-related flooding. They usually get two feet of water in the store.

They had not packed everything for Irma and the flood had destroyed all their electrical equipment, including three ice machines and a freezer.

"We lost everything," she said.

The store sells ice cream, fudge and souvenirs in the usual place where people would take the ferry to get to the popular and federally protected island, Cumberland Island, the largest and the southernmost island of Georgia.

According to Disanto, Labor Day weekend is usually one of their best weekends to make money, but the storm has ruined that. Disanto expects to lose a total of two weeks.

"Nobody's resting, eating ice cream," she says.

When Facebook posts began circulating on Wednesday, business started to subside. "The hysteria is settled," she said.

To keep from melting, she signed a win-win-free deal for Sunday's ice cream. They sold 18 bins.

RELATED: Many residents of Savannah are in no hurry to leave

RELATED: St. Marys residents prepare for Dorian

RELATED: Governor Brian Kemp urges coastal residents to evacuate