SAVANNAH – Hundreds of residents boarded buses here Tuesday morning chartered by the local government to carry them away from approaching Hurricane Dorian.
Many live in the eastern part of Chatham County. Gov. Brain Kemp ordered the evacuation of everyone living east of I-95 in all six counties that make up the state’s coast. Dorian, which devastated the Bahamas and inched toward south Florida in Tuesday morning, was expected to hug Georgia’s coastline on Wednesday and Thursday.
Janette Odum said she wanted nothing to do with the storm. She stood in line with dozens of others, enduring the air of a hot morning so humid it seemed to press on the skin until it drew sweat. Like many, Odum, who was hunched over resting on a walker, accepted her fate because climbing on the bus and getting out of town was the best option she had.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
“I like to be obedient and listen,” she said. “I leave every year.”
That’s because Dorian, like all storms churning off the tropics, is “very unpredictable.”
Once inside, the evacuees had to stand in another line, fill out a little paperwork and then take a seat in the stadium seats of the Martin Luther King Jr. arena while waiting to board a bus. Workers passed out snacks and bottles of water. The ride was free, as was the cot they were headed for in a shelter in Augusta.
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There were families with antsy little kids. There were people chatting with friends. There were solo travelers trying to strike up a conversation or simply staring straight ahead with a worried — or more often, bored — expression. Almost everyone carried a hastily stuffed bag of clothes. One man carried a baby, who barely fussed as he had to change a diaper on the floor of the men’s room, where he couldn’t find a changing station.
In the auditorium, Mary Brown rested on the seat of her wheeled walker.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
She thought back to Hurricane Irma in 2017 when she also decided to take one of Chatham County’s buses to the shelter in Augusta. She recalled the irony of looking out a window at the shelter and seeing winds lashing trees. It seemed like you couldn’t escape a storm like that. Still, the shelter, a gym lined with cots, felt safer than her house. Plus, it was sort of nice to have so many people helping her get through.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
“I enjoyed it, really. I did,” she said, laughing at the thought. “Everyone was really nice — the Red Cross, the National Guard and the police. It made me feel like Michelle Obama.”
Ten-year-old Shmyia Gardner had a similar idea as she stood in line to get into the civic center: “It’s like an adventure to me.”
“Like a vacation,” her mom Cicely Gardner added.
Others weren’t as happy to be leaving town, at least not under these circumstances.
“We don’t leave because we wanna leave. We leave because we have to. It’s very frustrating,” said Veronica Washington. “But it’s an act of God. We don’t have no control over it.”
During Irma, Washington stayed in a hotel. This time she, like many other people she knew, were caught off guard and couldn’t afford to leave town any other way than showing up at the civic center.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Some people said they live in government housing or shelters for the needy and were told they had to leave. Others had no other option.
“I’m homeless,” 27-year-old James Williams said, while lugging a suitcase up the stairs. “I need somewhere to go.”
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