using highways for no-notice evacuations - FHWA Operations - U.S. ...

DESTINATIONS AND SHELTERINGEvacuation planners do not need only to enable the movement ofat-risk populations to areas of safety; they need to arrange care andsheltering for those populations as well. While the elements involvedin selecting and preparing sheltering facilities for an evacuation arebeyond the scope of this document, there are some issues associatedwith shelters that should be addressed as part of the planning considerations.The most important issue is that sheltering facilities must be identified,assessed, and prepared in advance of being needed to be able tosupport a no-notice evacuation. A no-notice scenario will not providesufficient time to provision facilities and train their staffs; these activitiesmust be done ahead of time to ensure readiness.Evacuation planners should pre-identify sheltering facilities in order toevaluate their locations in relation to proposed evacuation routes andother components of the transportation network. Planners should assessshelters’ locations, as well as their capacities, facilities, and resources,in relation to how evacuee traffic will be routed. If, for example, themajor evacuation routes run north-to-south from a city but the viableshelters are east and west of the city, route evaluation needs to be undertakenduring the route selection process. Transportation plannersshould coordinate with emergency managers, the American Red Cross,and other stakeholders responsible for mass care to understand whichshelters can be used and make determinations about how to directevacuation traffic to those destinations. In some cases, certain sheltersmay be poor candidates for use due to poor connections with thetransportation network; transportation planners need to communicatethis information to the stakeholders responsible for establishing theshelters. Most critically, it is important that the jurisdictions where theshelters are pre-identified know about these plans and concur. Duringpast disasters there have been instances where jurisdictions have deniedentry to evacuees and refused to allow trains and buses to off-load atthe shelters.For large-scale, medium- and long-term evacuations, transportationplanners need to assess the transportation network’s ability to enablere-supply and provisioning of the sheltering locations. Some facilities74USING HIGHWAYS FOR NO-NOTICE EVACUATIONS