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Mississippi Gulf Coast-
Due to traffic congestion during the evacuations for Hurricane Ivan in September 2004, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, along with other state and local government agencies, have taken steps to improve the evacuation process in South Mississippi.
There are three changes designed to help evacuation traffic flow along U.S. 49 that were not in place during Hurricane Ivan’s evacuation, said MEMA Director Robert Latham.
The three main differences this year that will help eliminate traffic along U.S. 49 are:
- Law enforcement will be able to manually control traffic signals along U.S. 49.
- Only evacuation traffic will be allowed to travel on U.S. 49 north through the city of Hattiesburg.
- MDOT and MEMA will be promoting alternate traffic routes for Gulf Coast residents to take that will avoid U.S. 49.
Governor Haley Barbour appointed a commission headed by Mississippi Department of Public Safety Commissioner George Phillips to study the response to Hurricane Ivan and try to make improvements, Latham said.
“There were several issues we knew had to be dealt with,” he said. “We realized the traffic signals along U.S. 49 were causing the greatest delays in Gulfport, Hattiesburg and south of Jackson and that had to be addressed before this season.”
To keep evacuation traffic from backing up, the Mississippi Department of Transportation and cities along U.S. 49 installed stop-time switches on 29 of the main traffic signals from Gulfport to Jackson. MDOT officials said the switches will allow local and state law enforcement officers to manually control the signals and keep evacuees moving north.
MEMA and MDOT have also worked with Forrest County Emergency Management and Hattiesburg Police Department to help reduce the traffic congestion in the city. The police department has written a plan that will keep evacuation traffic moving north and will not allow non-evacuation traffic to use the north bound lanes of the highway during an evacuation.
During the month of June, MEMA and MDOT will also promote a list of alternative evacuation routes from the Gulf Coast to help reduce traffic along U.S. 49. Although traffic counts were significantly higher along the main evacuation routes, traffic counts were lower among other state highways in South Mississippi. The alternate evacuation routes will suggest residents use such highways as Miss. 15, 43, 53 and 57. These roads will allow evacuees to reach destinations like Meridian and Vicksburg to get to the Jackson area instead of using U.S. 49.
