There aren’t any shelters, County Emergency Management Coordinator Frank McCall told an audience of mostly emergency management personnel at a Dec. 14 public forum here.The county prepared a flood inundation map that shows the entire county under water with a Category 3 hurricane, said West Cape Emergency Management Coordinator Dan Rutherford McCall said the benchmark for hurricanes headed in this direction is Cape Hatteras, N.C. that is 36 hours from Cape May.”We think even in the height of the season, we can evacuate the entire county in 36 hours,” he said, even in a busy time such as the third week of August. “We don’t want folks here,” said McCall. “We want folks out of harm’s way, we want you to get off the Jersey cape.”
McCall said the county’s year round population is 105,000 residents, according to the Census, but in summer the population swells to 550,000 to 750,000 people. When there are three or more days of temperature at 90 degrees or above, a million people can be in the county, he said. Lanes would be reversed outbound on Route 47 between Route 83 and Route 55. “Once we get the initial phone call, it takes about four hours to get the whole system set up,” said McCall.
See next week’s Herald for full story.
