Haley: Everyone Needs a Hurricane Plan

With Hurricane Season now officially underway, S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley traveled the state's coastal region Friday to encourage residents to be prepared for evacuations if a storm heads this way.

Haley began her day in Conway, and stopped in North Charleston at the Charleston County Emergency Management Division in North Charleston at noon to talk about the importance of being prepared before a hurricane or tropical storm arrive.

"It's Hurricane Season once again," Haley said. "We have already seen that it was busy before we even hit the starting day of Hurricane Season, so now is the time we need people to get involved."

Likening it to having an emergency plan for a house fire, Haley said every family needs an evacuation plan in place before the time comes to leave. She added that thousands more people are living along the coast now than the last time a tropical cyclone threatened the Palmetto State, and that because of stronger storm surges people further inland will also be affected by evacuation orders.

"I want to reiterate that preparedness is a critical part of hurricane response," S.C. Emergency Management Division Director George McKinney said. "It is very important that we put together our hurricane plans and get prepared now."

The state has changed the way it handles hurricane evacuations, doing away with voluntary evacuation orders.

"What we've found is the voluntary evacuations tend to make people more complacent," Haley said. "They don't move as fast as they should, they don't make the decisions as fast as they should, so it's not just South Carolina, many states have decided to do away with the voluntary evacuations."

"When we say it's mandatory and it's time to go that will [alert] the people that it's time to go," she said. "Our big concern today is to let people know that there is a much bigger population on the coast than there was 10 years ago and there are much stronger storm surges that will come much farther inland that we did not anticipate."

Officials said people should make plans now for evacuations by figuring out which evacuation routes they plan to take.

"Know your evacuation route, that's a huge piece of ensuring the plan works efficiently," Capt. Rob Blitch with the S.C. Department of Public Safety said. "Don't assume that the only way out of the Tri-county area is I-26 because it's not. So know what your route is and then plan down to the lowest level, make sure that your spare tire has air in it, that your vehicle is in good repair and that your tank is full of gas before you leave."

Copies of the 2012 South Carolina Hurricane Guide, which contains a map of all hurricane evacuation routes and is produced by the S.C. Emergency Management Division are available at the Charleston County Lonnie Hamilton, III Public Services Building at 4045 Bridgeview Drive in North Charleston. Residents can also access the guide through the SCEMD website.

McKinney said the state's plan in the event of a mandatory evacuation order from the governor will be to immediately reverse the eastbound lanes of I-26 to facilitate traffic away from the coast, so the headaches residents experienced the last time South Carolina had a close call with Hurricane Floyd in 1999 won't be repeated.