File:Coast watch (1979) (20632875336).jpg

Title: Coast watch
Identifier: coastwatch00uncs_1 (find matches)
Year: 1979 (1970s)
Authors: UNC Sea Grant College Program
Subjects: Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology
Publisher: (Raleigh, N. C. : UNC Sea Grant College Program)
Contributing Library: State Library of North Carolina
Digitizing Sponsor: North Carolina Digital Heritage Center

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Illustration by Timothy Howard
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Pamlico County's evacuation plan based on longitude and latitude departments, police departments, city mayors, county commissioners, the Red Cross and others are notified. Shelter preparations begin. "Condition two" begins 24 hours in advance of hurricane landfall. Shelters are opened. Emergency equipment and vehicles are readied. Public advisories are issued. Twelve hours from landfall "condi- tion one" is established. The order to evacuate beachfront and flood-prone areas is given during condition one. The decision to evacuate may be made by the emergency management coor- dinator, as is the case in Pamlico County, or by an emergency commit- tee of county mayors and county com- missioners, as in New Hanover County. The decision is made at the county level, not the state level. During this condition one phase, a central emergency headquarters is es- tablished. Orders go out from the headquarters to police, the sheriff's department and the fire department for the evacuation. Evacuation shelters are in full operation. The Red Cross, county social services and health departments provide evacuees with shelter, food and medical care if needed. Other county departments also assist during the evacuation phase. In the aftermath of the hurricane, the county provides protection from looting, damage-assessment estimates and continued operation of the shelters as needed. Dick Simmons, emergency- management coordinator for Pamlico County, says his county's evacuation plan is slightly different from others. The plan is based on the longitude and latitude of an approaching hurricane. Simmons says he would call for the evacuation of Goose Creek Island, the county's most vulnerable area, when a hurricane was at 31 degrees 15 minutes north latitude and between 70 and 85 degrees west longitude (about 15 hours prior to landfall). "When I call for evacuation I want to be pretty confident Pamlico County is going to be clobbered or close enough to being clobbered that we're in con- siderable danger," he says. "The hurricane can always turn out not to be as bad as we predicted and we may over-evacuate people. But in my book an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." —Kathy Hart

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