Kemp urges coastal communities to evacuate before Hurricane Dorian

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Savannah, Georgia –

In Savannah, the time set by the evacuation order from Monday at noon was given and removed without rushing out of the city.

Many residents seemed to be staying in the city, taking advantage of Hurricane Dorian's ever-changing trajectory. But preparations were underway, just in case it would upset the old coastal 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.

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp ordered Sunday evening evacuation of residents located east of the I-95 highway in six coastal counties. The affected area in Georgia extends north of St. Marys in Camden County on the Florida border and Savannah in Chatham County on the South Carolina border. Evacuations were scheduled to begin Monday afternoon.

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.

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.

From 8am to 6pm Tuesday, Chatham buses offer free trips to the Civic Center in Savannah, where chartered buses will take evacuees to inner shelters for free. Staying in the shelters is also free, as is the return to Savannah after the passing of the storm, Matthew told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper. The evacuation of the Civic Center accepts pets.

But it is too early to say exactly when officials will want the evacuees to return, because no one knows how much Dorian will treat the Georgian coast.

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

At least some 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."

Mackey and some partners own Mackey House, an event venue in Savannah that hosts many weddings. Mackey hopes that the damage caused by Dorian will not be penalized. They are organizing a wedding party of 250 people who plan to use the facilities on Saturdays.

"If it's really damaged, they have to postpone, but fortunately it seems we're going to stay far enough so we just have a bunch of cleanups to do," he said.