People living in low-lying areas along the Louisiana Gulf Coast are starting to make plans to potentially evacuate ahead of the arrival of what is expected to be Hurricane Francine.
Mandatory evacuations have been ordered in Cameron.
In Grand Isle, Louisiana’s last inhabited island, Mayor David Carmadelle is urging his residents to get out.
“I called a voluntary evacuation for my residents,” says Mayor Carmadelle. “At the same time, I called a mandatory evacuation for trailers and RVs to try to get the boats and trailers out of here and the RVs out.”
Mayor Carmadelle says he expects the voluntary evacuation for residents to become a mandatory evacuation tomorrow.
“If I got all these boats and trailers out, it gives you time to travel in the daytime to come get your stuff. And by doing that, that’ll clean the road out for my residents to get out.”
Carmadelle says his main concern is not the wind speed of what is expected to be a Category One hurricane (maximum sustained winds of 74-95 MPH), but rather the storm surge.
“We got our levee just about built with the geotube. Some places, they’re still working on it. But most of it is done to protect that. But I’m just most concerned about the water with high tides.”
Carmadelle says in recent years, building codes have strengthened so that most buildings can withstand a Category One hurricane like the one that’s expected to make landfall Wednesday evening.
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