McAuliffe: Virginia Not Prepared for a Hampton Roads Evacuation

On June 1st we again enter into hurricane season.  Like so much else that relates to environmental issues, Virginia is not ready for an evacuation of Hampton Roads should a major storm hit the area.  Thankfully, Governor McAullife is recognizing this reality.  As any afternoon commuter trying to traverse the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel (where morons behind the wheel slow down to 20 mph rather than maintain the posted speed) or seeking to traverse the bottleneck in northern Newport News where Interstate 64 drops to four lanes from eight lanes can attest there is simply no way in Hell a major evacuation could be accommodated.  Making maters worse is the Virginia GOP's refusal to even admit that climate change is occurring and that higher levels of preparedness are needed.  A piece in the Daily Press looks at McAuliffe's common sense recognition of the problem and the potential for catastrophe.  Here are excerpts:

Gov. Terry McAuliffe has asked two cabinet secretaries to head a new look at emergency evacuation plans for Hampton Roads after an exercise two weeks ago showed that "we could not evacuate if we had a major catastrophe," he said.

The difficulty of a hurricane or other emergency evacuation in the area is well known, given the constricting geography. The state's current hurricane plan — available online and dated May 2013 — says an evacuation would have to account for as many as 900,000 people in 400,000 cars in the area.  It would effect as many as 1.2 million people up and down the Virginia coast if a hurricane came during peak tourist season, the plan states.

But a "tabletop exercise" held earlier this month in Richmond, attended by McAuliffe and his cabinet, as well as emergency and law enforcement officials, made it "clear and evident we can't get folks out of the Hampton Roads region," McAuliffe said.

The state's hurricane plan lists nine evacuation routes for the area: I-64, I-264, I-664, Route 10, Route 13, Route 17, Route 58, Route 60 and U.S. 460.

There are plans to build a new U.S. 460, but McAuliffe suspended the project earlier this year after it became apparent the state had spent close to $300 million on the road with no guarantee that the proposed route would get a required permit from the Army Corps of Engineers.

McAuliffe and Layne have both said they support the concept behind the 460 project, which would provide a new evacuation route as well as a new truck route for port traffic. The road may take another route than the southern path already planned, though, and that would rachet up the costs if previous design and testing work is thrown away.

McAuliffe reiterated his general support for the project's concept Thursday, and for other area road improvements. The Virginia Department of Transportation already plans to widen parts of I-64.  "Clearly ... we need some capacity to get folks out," McAuliffe said.

Even though our home has flooded in past storms, the reality is that in any storm pushing less than a 12 foot storm surge, we'd be safer remaining in our home (we park the cars on the 2nd floors of downtown parking garages) and relying on the whole house generator and commercial sump pumps to is contend with the water as opposed to going through a major storm stuck in gridlock on an impassable Interstate.   Many residents are in even lower lying areas than we are and are not as prepared as we are now after the 2009 Nor'Ida Storm that saw tide levels just 3.24 inches under the all-time record high level at the Norfolk Naval Base.

Our home during the 2009 Nor'Ida Storm