Day 504 - Disaster Preparedness

This is a summary of the events, actions and decisions made by PDA staff surrounding Fay, Gustav and Ike; they should illumine a path towards preparedness greatly improved over last year’s experience.

The critical part of the evacuation is the protocol for all personnel to move to Gulfport and proceed with evacuation to Meridian from there.

In late August 2008, two Atlantic tropical storms entered the Caribbean Sea sequentially, Fay and then Gustav. The timing of these storms shows how fast storms can arise, come upon us and the timing we have to react.

Fortunately there were no volunteers in the villages. The results are a lesson for developing a good disaster evacuation plan. Operation headquarters was in Gulfport, MS.

This document summarizes the relatively objective events covering Fay, Gustav and Ike, starting about one week before Gustav hit to several weeks afterwards. The next document will present an accounting of specific management and personnel failures that jeopardized safety and reflect the importance of clear chain of authority, routine preparation for disaster and importance of local relying on local leadership.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

On Wednesday August 20, the National Hurricane Center (http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/) was tracking TS Fay heading towards the Southeastern US from the South Atlantic. Tracking suggested it was going to be another Florida storm if it made the coast at all.

Friday, August 22, 2008

Fay wandered around Florida the rest of this week. Finally after dumping ten’s of inches of rain it started a slow amble westward. On Friday the predictions still were uncertain enough to cause concern but it looked like Fay would track well northward and plow across Florida and north Georgia into Tennessee.

Saturday, August 23, 2008

By Saturday, August 23, Fay had slowed to a 45 mph tropical storm and drifted a bit southward. It was almost a 100% certainty she would burn out over Alabama and Mississippi as a bad rainstorm. At this time, the NHC was showing Gustav as a tropical depression in the ocean behind Fay.

Nevertheless, the logistics staff had panicked and everything in sight was moved into sheltered areas or tied down.

Sunday, AUGUST 24, 2008

At this point the weather in Gulfport had picked up a steady gentle breeze and periodically high clouds that Fay spun off as it churned in the Panhandle and went totally north of the Gulf coast. There was some remote chance it would drift southward and give us a lot of rain. It passed overnight with little of no rain, and only substantial wind gusts.

Ominously, the satellite imagery showed the new storm, GUSTAV, might roll over into the Gulf, rather than go northward. The Gulf water is about 85°F and that is plenty hot enough of an engine to rev up a slow moving storm into a dangerous beast. [On August 15, 2009 the Gulf surface temperature is varying between 80-85°F and two tropical storms are approaching the southern Florida coast line.]

No decisions were made as to preparation at this time.

Monday, AUGUST 25, 2008

By Monday, the forward front of GUSTAV was battering Florida. Satellite imagery still suggested it might roll over into the Gulf into the warm 85°F water. At this time the probabilistic track issued by NHC moved over the southern edge of the Florida panhandle or slightly southward out into the Gulf.

Tuesday, AUGUST 26, 2008

The NHC predicted a "very dangerous hurricane" in the Gulf this morning:

"SOME WEAKENING IS SHOWN IN 24 HR DUE TO THE LAND INTERACTION WITH HAITI. THEREAFTER...THE HURRICANE IS FORECAST TO BE OVER EXTREMELY WARM WATERS WITH RELATIVELY LIGHT SHEAR. THE OFFICIAL INTENSITY FORECAST IS INCREASED AND NOW CALLS FOR GUSTAV TO BE A MAJOR HURRICANE IN THE NORTHWESTERN CARIBBEAN SEA. IT IS WORTH NOTING THAT BOTH THE GFDL/HWRF FORECAST SHOW AN EVEN STRONGER HURRICANE. MOST INDICATIONS ARE THAT GUSTAV WILL BE AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS HURRICANE IN THE NORTHWESTERN CARIBBEAN SEA IN A FEW DAYS. “

The models suggested Gustav may eventually track west (the storm has slid south over the last 2 days) but for now the models are predicting a beeline for Louisiana and Texas.

Wednesday, AUGUST 27, 2008

Tuesday night Gustav slowed down as it crossed Haiti. The expected arrival into the northern Gulf on Sunday has moved to Monday morning. Its arrival may be my birthday present on Tuesday. Some models are suggesting it could be a stronger storm than Katrina but the National Hurricane Center says right now it is as probable it will be a category 1 to category 3 storm.

At this point we have less than one week until predicted impact and preparation for evacuation should be in high gear. No preparations for evacuation have started.

GUSTAV is now an ominous threat. It looks certain that it will become a full-blown hurricane in a day or so. It's killed 11 people in Haiti. All the tracks point towards the Gulf Coast somewhere in a 300-mile wide spread from New Orleans to Florida.

Probabilistic tracks point towards ground zero in Mississippi/Alabama, perhaps east of the current prediction. Currently, the weather map has the centroid aimed right at Pearlington. MS.

In a long-term recovery meeting in Hancock County Wednesday morning we learned the Governor's office may issue a mandatory evacuation announcement Saturday. A friend working in New Orleans for the state says the evacuation announcement may occur there about the same time.

After this meeting, the existing storm plan was implemented by the VVC. Between now and Saturday we will be packing up and securing property and moving it to designated storage locations. We are preparing roughly 48 hours before predicted landfall to drive our vehicles packed with food, water and extra fuel to Meridian, MS, the staging point. This requires a drive up I-59N, an evacuation route that is going run counter-current, all one-way North and will be funneling evacuees from LA and MS.

Thursday AUGUST 28, 2008

Thursday was a busy day. The National Hurricane Center still shows the centroid of models pointing at landfall somewhere along the northern Gulf Coast.

The conditions in the Gulf look favorable for a big storm, probably category 3, but on the NHC discussion they said a category 4 or 5 isn’t out of the question. By later in the day the storm track looks like landfall west of us, not good because the east side of the storm is where the surge is worst.

We are in the midst of preparation to secure villages and evacuate tomorrow (Friday) morning to Meridian (2 days before predicted landfall).

The objective is to secure Orange Grove, Pearlington, Lulling, Olive Tree and Houma.

Securing means taking all moveable materials, chairs, beds, records, computers, etc and placing them in the sea containers stationed at each camp or bringing them with us. Preferably we will move out trailers with the PDA trucks to prevent their destruction. Village computers should be take with us, they are the only record of activity and contain the only historical records. There are no options for remote backup in place.

Securing the villages in two days will require the logistics staff and local village managers to follow an orderly protocol to systematically secure each village. Time will be compressed due to the very late start of preparation for evacuation.

We have extra gasoline in containers stored under our protocol but we find most of it is old and stale. We do not have enough 5 gallon fuel containers to support the expect number of vehicles. Stored gasoline was not preserved with additives.

We also have a significant amount of cash at each village to be used in evacuation. Particularly after a major storm where there is extensive power outages and damage, fuel stations if open, stop taking credit cards and it becomes a cash-only business. This is also true of other stores.

I went to Pearlington to coordinate and help lay out the plan to secure. This entails taking down the common tent, removing all cots and mattresses into the sea container, and placing as much materiel as possible in the sea containers.

I went to the Gulfport operations office to get all the critical papers and electronics into a file cabinet. All paper files were placed in plastic bags, as was all electronic equipment we would not be taking with us. This took from early morning until noon for me to do by myself.

I finished around noon and headed to Pearlington to help take down and secure our village. The work site manager and I took down the walls of the big community tent, boxed up as many meal items, and paper goods and small appliances as we could.

By mid-afternoon we got the power tools in a trailer for evacuation and I had all the chairs and tables broken down and ready for the logistics crew to load into the sea containers. I went and filled all the propane tanks for the camper/trailers. On the way back the radio reported the governor of Mississippi has declared a state of emergency.

I drove back to Gulfport to check on activity there.

Friday AUGUST 29, 2008

By now the governor of Mississippi has declared mandatory evacuation of all people in FEMA housing and in newly constructed homes in the flood zone in Harrison and Hancock counties (basically all the land south of I-10). The governor of Louisiana declared evacuation of all people with disability or poor health. It is only a matter of time before a full evacuation order comes out and then the highways will be plugged with cars.

The National Hurricane Center is still predicting an impact of Gustav on the Gulf Coast with the “consensus” prediction pointing to landfall just west of New Orleans early Tuesday morning. The models are still ambiguous but there is a growing fear on a rapid intensification to a level 3 or higher storm as Gustav passes Cuba. The potential for a severe storm surge from New Orleans eastward is great.

Evacuation activity became bogged down due to insubordination and a good amount of confusion over who was in authority. Key staff members refused to back up the VCC. The logistics staff left for Louisiana to secure the three villages there, and the VCC and local staff focused on Orange Grove, headquarters and Pearlington. The Pearlington Village Manager was in Pennsylvania on a visit to home.

I left Gulfport about 7:15AM in order to meet our Village Coordinator in Pearlington by 8AM. Today we have to complete the job Pearlington Work site manager and I started yesterday – completely disassemble the Pearlington operation (tents) and secure all the equipment.

We boxed up all the paper records and load up several pallets of our bottled water to bring to the Hancock County EOC (Emergency operations center) in Bay St. Louis. We arranged for a local resident we have worked with to monitor the camp and to dispense remaining water if necessary after the storm.

It is likely if the storm is severe there will be significant water damage at the least.

About 9:00AM three of the logistics team came in from Gulfport. They had been securing our village in Lulling yesterday and driven all the way back to Gulfport again leaving the Louisiana work incomplete; rather than proceed to Houma. They arrived in Gulfport about 1AM.

We set them to work removing the cots and mattresses from the pods.

We find we have one large freezer full of food, and a second one about half full and a lot of canned goods in the kitchen. Our plan is to shut down the electricity in the village as a safety precaution. Since the food is going to go bad and we can’t possibly use it all even if we try to take it with us (Trinity Presbyterian Church in Meridian is already prepared to feed us.)

We decide to load up the freezer and carry it to the EOC, they were unbelievably thankful. It will help them if the situation gets really bad and we’ll get the freezers back. Although there was some debate about taking the food with us, the good thing is we’ve built a strong relationship with a very important recovery organization in Hancock County, and we’ve stayed true to Matthew 6:25-33.

Over objections a large truck was rented to fill with water bottles and extra materials in Pearlington we would not really need. This truck was driven to Meridian in the evacuation and neither it nor its contents were used.

Saturday August 30, 2008.

Gustav has slowed delaying the predicted landfall. At 6AM Saturday Gustav is a category 2, a dramatic increase last night and approaching Cuba. We will get a good idea of what is going to happen after the storm passes Cuba. Regardless, protocol says we should be departing as soon as possible.

The only glimmer of hope is that there are some shearing winds that may keep the storm from becoming a great storm. Increasingly, it looks bad for Louisiana right now.

The logistics staff has been driving round trip to LA and back in their effort to secure those villages. It appears much remains to be secured. Their lack of experience with a storm and the feedback from local residents they have with them is creating enough panic to prevent orderly movement.

Volunteer staff members from Louisiana village and Pearlington are instructed to come to Gulfport to help with Orange Grove take down. The order is countermanded wit no notice to the VCC by the Logistics personnel to proceed to Pearlington to help with a local resident’s preparation.

There is great confusion and blatant disregard for the VCC instructions. This is an outgrowth of no advanced dry runs of evacuation/securing drills and a confused chain of command.

Saturday, AUGUST 30, 2008

While the logistics staff has been running back and forth to Louisiana daily, I completely packed the staff office, securing computers or putting them inside plastic bags, putting all files and papers in plastic bags and securing all in metal storage cabinets. Then along with the VCC and some people she hired to help, I spent all day at Orange Grove cleaning up. WE managed to take down Orange Grove by late in the day. We decided to leave the community tent up since the track was still pointing west of here and it is too big for us to take down.

Gustav was growing ever stronger and was now a category 4 with a possibility of category 5.

Late in the day, Louisville finally gives us the go ahead to evacuate. All staff departs Orange Grove no later than this evening taking as many trailers as possible.

The problem is that all the logistics staff and village staff in Louisiana have yet to arrive in Orange Grove where protocol requires we stage departure.

When the Pearlington trailers were move d to Orange Grove last night, we found tires were underinflated and some tires were dangerously dry rotted. Furthermore, when we had all trailers in Gulfport we could not find any of the anti-sway stabilizer bars necessary for safe towing on the interstate. These were not found until months after we returned to Gulfport. As a result speed on the interstate is going to be limited to about 50 mph.

It looks really bad for the west part of the state and Louisiana. I-10 and I-59 are probably going to be bad.

The storm was originally expected by Saturday morning. Evacuation orders have already been given for the areas and we expect the interstate to soon be packed and all lanes running northward. The departure for Meridian is already over two days late according to our protocol. All staff are not at Gulfport yet.

Sunday, AUGUST 31, 2008

We got out of the village late yesterday (Saturday) and faced constant traffic on I-59N. Almost all cars had Louisiana plates and they drove as if they were in fear of their lives. At least people are taking this storm seriously.

We drove our people to Meridian in two convoys, the second leaving thirty minutes after the first. The second didn't leave for almost two more hours after us.

We notified Trinity Presbyterian Church of our departure and received good directions to the church. We stationed the camper trailers in the parking lot and set up a generator. We found numerous short-circuits in the campers, the generator would blow breakers. Power was problematic all night. . This was a result of the absence of routine maintenance. The second convoy ran into heavy traffic on I-59 and did not arrive until 4AM.

The National Hurricane Center is predicting a bad surge and Pearlington has a mandatory evacuation.

At the moment, there is a mandatory evacuation order by the governor for all people south of I-10 in Mississippi. I-59 is down to one lane due to an auto wreck. The governor has declared a 6PM to 6AM curfew for all of Hancock County and the National Guard is going house-to-house notifying people to evacuate. Tropical force winds are expected in Gulfport by midnight. We expect rain in Meridian later this afternoon. Both cloud cover and wind has picked up here.

I-55 and I-59 are now countercurrent flow (all four lanes moving north, no south traffic allowed.) I-10E was closed early this morning at the Alabama state line due to congestion around Mobile; they are moving people north on surface roads.

The Air Force is flying transports out of New Orleans. Buses drive to passenger pick up points, load people on, drive to the airport and up into the aircraft. The aircraft doors close and the plane takes off for Meridian, Jackson or another location. The planes return to New Orleans and repeat this shuttle.

The NHC reports that Gustav is accelerating. They have moved up the impact to tomorrow mid- to late morning. I just looked at the time-lapse satellite loop on the NHC web site, and its current speed is amazing. Although the intensity is fluctuating, they are still predicting a likely category 3 or category 4 storm at landfall and the expectation it may slow down on landfall creating torrential rain. Its speed may be a saving grace. It limits the time for intensification over the warm gulf waters

We are short of flashlights. Driving to downtown Meridian we see piles of sandbags stacked in many storefronts. We went to the Wal-Mart for flashlights and batteries, but the place is packed. The flashlight display is stripped. I hope we went far enough north. Later we find hundreds of batteries in the Logistics Sea Container in Gulfport, but no one had the key or knew its contents other than the logistics staff that were in Louisiana.

Monday, SEPTEMBER 1, 2008 Landfall

We evacuated Mississippi and Louisiana in the nick of time. We brought 7 of our staff from the Gulf and 12 immediate family from Houma.

Here in Meridian inside Trinity Presbyterian Church, on Monday morning at 9AM we get a cell phone call from Houma telling us the logistics staff person has lost their mobile home along with everything; their house, clothes, school supplies, utensils.

The high school about a mile away caught on fire (electrical?) and burned down. The local shrimp processing plant was obliterated and scattered everywhere. Like Pearlington before it, Houma at ground zero was dealt a smashing blow.

We met at 6PM for a telephone conference with our VCC leader who remained in the Gulfport area with emergency personnel. She is a qualified relief person.

We covered protocol and attempted to resolve the problem of countermanding orders. This problem continued until a Louisville staffer had to issue formal protocol that the VCC was in charge.

Tuesday, SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

The hurricane has passed Mississippi and the logistics and other staff people are pressing us to rush to get back to the villages before it is safe to do so. .

We have a critical problem, No one in PDA had thought to obtain for everyone emergency relief credentials and it is highly likely if we return to substantial community damage that we may be ordered to leave as protocol now requires these credentials for emergency relief to enter areas.

Furthermore severe tornadoes are still passing through Alabama and Mississippi as remnants of Gustav blow through. We get word Monday night to head back to Gulfport at 8AM Tuesday.

The three-hour trip to Gulfport was harrowing. We ran into a tornado warning around Laurel. The rain was extremely heavy and the sky was darkening very rapidly. We conferenced by cell phone and decided we were ahead of the worst of the weather. We agreed it was more expedient and safer to put more distance between us and Laurel rather than stopping. Wit no sway bars we were lucky no one was injured. We drove through an area outside Laurel, MS where a tornado was present. We finally got into Gulfport about 11:30AM. We worked until about 6PM to get our Village cleaned up.

Wednesday, SEPTEMBER 3, 2008

The next day, Wednesday, at Pearlington we find all the pods have floated out into the swamp behind the village. It appears all but two or three can be retrieved relatively undamaged. The kitchen took about eight or ten inches of water and smells foul. The plywood underlay of the floor is buckling.

At the end of the day, we drove back to Gulfport on the scenic beach route, US90, looking at the yachts and boats that washed up against the seawall beside the road. There is a lot of debris and visible damage but nothing like the situation after Katrina.

Friday, SEPTEMBER 5, 2008

In the space of the last eleven days we have struggled with three hurricanes. Fay gave us a glancing blow, Gustav severely damaged Houma and the Galveston area but we were spared us what should have been a deadly category 5 blow by the forward speed of Gustav after crossing Cuba and the westward track.

Now Ike lurks in the Caribbean moving towards the straight between Florida and Cuba, the mouth of the Gulf of Mexico. Everyone in our camps has been in constant motion, packing, evacuating, returning, cleaning and rebuilding and now facing a probable second evacuation for IKE next Wednesday or Thursday.

Saturday AUGUST 6, 2008

We went the eighty miles to Houma. We w ere worried about the curfew from 8PM to 6AM. We leave by 7:30AM. We find at Houma that the large storage tent has collapsed, all the pods are blown away and all the cots and mattresses are scattered about the property. The village will have to be rebuilt.

Sunday, SEPTEMBER 7, 2008

In Orange Grove Sunday at 11:30AM after church, we meet and discuss Ike. Ike is a serious storm, fluctuating between a category 4 and category 3 storm. It is wandering due west towards the Florida-Cuba are. The NHC predicts some time between now and Wednesday it is going to take a turn northward. If it enters the Gulf of Mexico it can get out only over land and we look like a good target. Ominously, as I remember it, Ike is on a path very close to Katrina in 2005 one of the worst hurricane on record.

Thursday, SEPTEMBER 11, 2008

Ike is now a category 2 hurricane about 200 or so nautical miles south of the mouth of the Mississippi river, moving west towards Corpus Christi or Galveston, TX. It is a massive category 1 storm with a low pressure at its center that says it should be a transitioning from category 3 to category 4. It is a very unusual and likely dangerous storm.

Ike's wind field is massive, especially on its northern arc, and that means us. We have tropical storm warnings all the way to the Alabama coast.

In Waveland, MS603 is already underwater. The police have it closed.
Then the weather radio reports that there are 20-25 foot seas in the gulf off the Mississippi coast. That's significant.

In Pearlington, I was on the telephone at 10AM looking for a forklift, concrete saw and trenching tool to start trenching for electrical work and reassembling the pods in our Pearlington Village with the village work site manager and an electrician. We had obtained a bid to rewire the village for about $1500.

Saturday, SEPTEMBER 20, 2008

It has been almost three weeks since we began preparing for Gustav. Neither Pearlington nor Houma is anywhere near ready for volunteers next week. We have volunteers coming into Orange Grove (Gulfport) and Olive Tree (New Orleans) Sunday. The next weekend we have volunteers coming into Pearlington and Lulling.

Recovering from the damage of those storms has been time-consuming, emotionally draining and physically exhausting. Most of our staff has worked 6-7 days a week, many of them 9 or 10-hour days for the majority of those three weeks.

In rebuilding Pearlington, we sustained little damage to tools and equipment since we packed out almost all our high-value tools from our two sea containers and filled them with our cots, mattresses, heaters and air conditioners and large dining tent; Gustav flooded the containers with about two feet of water, leaving behind a nice present of mold.

Although it never approached closer than about 200 miles, the surge from IKE undid everything we had done to recover from Gustav. All the pods were back into the swamp. We had to recover those in the same way.

Yesterday we managed to get all our surviving pods back into the rough formation we want thanks to the forklift provided by the graciousness of the Lagniappe Church in Bay Saint Louis. We’ve had to cut trenches in our concrete pad for new wiring. (That concrete pad is the parking lot of the former post office.) The water damaged much of our ground-level electrical wiring at Pearlington. We have dug trenches for electric line and new propane lines.

We discovered extremely dangerous electrical problems with the wiring done when the Pearlington Village was installed on the old US Post Office property after moving north one block due to construction. We found bare splices in wiring in conduits with evidence of gross arcing. We found numerous ground faults. Its was fortunate no volunteer or staff person was electrocuted.

We further find that when the village was moved to this property no conditional use permit was obtained and this caused problems for several months afterwards. The electrical contract has been voided by Logistics and a new contract set at about three times the price.

At this point we have neither electricity nor propane in Pearlington. Our pods and main tent at Houma Village were completely destroyed by Gustav and Ike. Because we were not able to pack out the cots and mattresses, or get them into the sea container on site a large proportion of them were destroyed, as was the big tent. Nothing is yet rebuilt therefore; it is not certain when the village will be able to support volunteers. The Lulling Village on the north side of New Orleans was spared a lot of damage. We lost a couple of pods.

Several of us spent a very hard full day last weekend at Lulling cutting up all the broken trees and limbs with chain saws and dragging the result to the curb. This weekend the Volunteer Village Coordinator and son and friends went back to finish cleanup and painting.

Everyone is exhausted and on edge. This is unbelievably hard work. Some of our staff are not prepared for this sacrifice and the lack of planning and rigor has made this recovery substantially more difficult that necessary.

As of May 2009, there is still no evacuation and recovery protocol ready. The new protocol was requested later winter. There are no persons working for PDA in the Gulf who have had experience with evacuations now.

At this time three tropical storms/hurricanes are present in the Gulf and south Atlantic. The tropical storm is almost on the Florida panhandle. Tropical storm ANA is moving fast, not intensify, and expected to hit the Texas/Louisiana/ Mississippi area about next Friday/Saturday. Bill is predicted to become a major category 4 storm in five days and is aimed at the southeastern Atlantic coast.