Hurricane Laura Evacuees Turned Away in Austin, Texas; Louisiana Preps for Life-Threatening Storm Surge

[Mary Wilson]

By Ron Brackett and Jan Wesner Childs

Residents in Texas and Louisiana are being warned Wednesday that the time to get out of the path of Hurricane Laura is running out as the storm is forecast to strengthen into a potentially catastrophic Category 4.

One coastal highway in Louisiana was already closed by floodwaters hours before landfall.

The coronavirus pandemic, however, is adding layers of complexity and confusion to evacuations. One intake shelter in Austin, Texas, began turning evacuees away Wednesday morning after it ran out of hotel vouchers.

More than 750,000 people in Texas and Louisiana are under mandatory orders to evacuate their homes in coastal counties and cities in anticipation of Laura's arrival overnight Wednesday into early Thursday.

...Because of COVID-19, shelter capacity is greatly reduced to allow for social distancing and evacuees were being told to seek their own hotel rooms as they drove further inland.

“Remember, just because a hurricane is coming to Texas, does not mean that COVID-19 either has or is going to leave Texas,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said. “COVID-19 is going to be in Texas throughout the course of the hurricane.”

Abbott and Texas Emergency Management Chief Nim Kidd said families would be able to isolate from other evacuees at hotels, the Dallas Morning News reported.

Communities in Louisiana face similar challenges.

"Frankly there's not that many places for people to go to," Dick Gremillion, director of homeland security and emergency preparedness for Calcasieu Parish, told The Weather Channel. "In our traditional shelters, we've lost two-thirds of capacity. It has been a difficult time rolling COVID into hurricane preparations."

https://weather.com/news/news/2020-0...s-preparations

 

[Mary Wilson]

Hurricane Laura Could Become a COVID-19 Superspreader as Storm heads for Hotspots Texas and Louisiana

BY JASON MURDOCK ON 8/26/20 AT 7:56 AM EDT

As weather-watchers warn residents on the Gulf Coast can expect "potentially catastrophic" damage from Hurricane Laura, scientists say large-scale evacuations may also cause a second major issue: a surge in COVID-19.

Tracking the massive storm currently heading in the direction of Texas and Louisiana, the National Weather Service (NWS) has forecast "life-threatening" conditions are now imminent—citing storm surges, flooding and winds that have topped 100 m.p.h.

According to the Associated Press, Texas officials have urged residents impacted to stay with family or in hotel rooms to avoid coming into contact with others and reduce the risk of contracting, or spreading, novel coronavirus.

COVID-19 has hit Texas hard, statistics from local health officials showing that it has logged over 586,000 confirmed cases and more than 11,000 deaths. In Louisiana, the disease has been tied to over 144,000 cases and at least 4,700 deaths.

With masses of residents forced on the move, there is a chance evacuees' "origin and destination counties" could see a rise in cases as a result, one recent study by scientists from Columbia University and Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) suggested.

The paper, a version of which was released earlier this month, was the first to "quantify how hurricane evacuation may affect" COVID-19 cases in the U.S.

Researchers said they built a hypothetical evacuation in which residents of Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade, and Monroe counties fled a Category 3 hurricane.

The study assumed 2.3 million people would leave the four counties and was based "on previous studies of evacuation compliance and behavior," the team said, noting that post-Hurricane Irma surveys were used to simulate where people would go.

The study, which is awaiting publication in a peer-reviewed journal but released as a pre-print, revealed an analysis of "historic evacuation patterns and virus transmission rates" indicated COVID-19 cases could spike by up to 61,000.

https://www.newsweek.com/hurricane-laura-covid19-spreader-texas-louisiana-evacuations-1527683

 

[Mary Wilson]

Study Quantifies Potential COVID-19 Spread From Hurricane Evacuation

Authored by IRI on August 13, 2020

With the peak of the hurricane season coming up and COVID-19 abundant in many hurricane-prone areas, the United States is poised to experience the collision of two major disasters. According to a study by scientists at Columbia University and the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), a large-scale hurricane evacuation would increase COVID-19 cases in both evacuees’ origin and destination counties. Directing evacuees to counties with low COVID-19 transmission rates rather than allowing evacuations to follow historical patterns would minimize the increase in cases, according to the study, though keeping virus transmission rates low in destination counties is also essential.

https://iri.columbia.edu/news/study-quantifies-potential-covid-19-spread-from-hurricane-evacuation/

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Compound risks of hurricane evacuation amid the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States

Sen Pei, Kristina A. Dahl, Teresa K. Yamana, Rachel Licker, Jeffrey Shaman
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.08.07.20170555

This article is a preprint and has not been peer-reviewed [what does this mean?]. It reports new medical research that has yet to be evaluated and so should not be used to guide clinical practice.


Abstract

Current projections and unprecedented storm activity to date suggest the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season will be extremely active and that a major hurricane could make landfall during the global COVID-19 pandemic. Such an event would necessitate a large-scale evacuation, with implications for the trajectory of the pandemic. Here we model how a hypothetical hurricane evacuation from four counties in southeast Florida would affect COVID-19 case levels. We find that hurricane evacuation increases the total number of COVID-19 cases in both origin and destination locations; however, if transmission rates in destination counties can be kept from rising during evacuation, excess evacuation-induced case numbers can be minimized by directing evacuees to counties experiencing lower COVID-19 transmission rates. Ultimately, the number of excess COVID-19 cases produced by the evacuation depends on the ability of destination counties to meet evacuee needs while minimizing virus exposure through public health directives.

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https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.07.20170555v1.full.pdf+html