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 16-22, 2009

Floods & Mudslides

  • Duncan and North Cowichan, British Columbia, Canada
  • Cockermouth, northwest England, U.K.

Wild or Brush Fires

  • Kandos and Rylstone, New South Wales, Australia

Hazardous Materials

  • Westwood, Johnson County, Kansas (natural gas leak)
  • Grand Cane, DeSoto Parish, Louisiana (natural gas well explosion)
  • Oregon City, Oregon (natural gas line rupture)
  • Exeter, New Hampshire (propane gas leak)
  • Bluffton, Indiana (natural gas leak)
  • Ripley, Jackson County, West Virginia (natural gas leak)

Malevolent Acts

  • Hernando, Florida (student's violent outburst causes classroom to be evacuated 5 times this school year)

Transportation Accident

  • Gilbert, South Carolina (freight train carrying sulfuric acid derails)

Planning and Analysis

  • Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency, releasing funds for victims of the Santa Cruz, California, floods and mudslides that affected the area in October 2009.
  • Steve Martin, battalion chief for Los Angeles County Fire's North Regional Operations Bureau, warned residents of Crescenta Valley, California, that storms could trigger unprecedented mudslide damage this winter.
  • University of Maryland researchers will use a cluster of IBM computers to analyze wildfire smoke patterns to provide real-time assessments to fire and public safety officials with a real-time assessment of a wildfire, allowing them to make more informed decisions on public evacuations and health warnings.
  • Israeli Defense Forces demoted and jailed two soldiers for opposing settler evacuations from Hebron, Israel.
  • The weather bureau has issued Australia's first "catastrophic" bushfire danger rating for two parts of northern South Australia. It is the first time the rating has been used in Australia since a new national warning system was introduced after Victoria's deadly Black Saturday bushfires in February 2009.
  • New Jersey Governor declares a State of Emergency in Atlantic and Cape May counties to support their clean-up needs after the November 12-14 Nor' easter inundated the area.

Previous 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.

Archives

An archived listing of Evacuations in the News.
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