By David Ball
PORT ARTHUR — From evacuees to emergency response personnel, everyone involved used one word to describe the evacuation process Saturday at the Robert “Bob” A. Bowers Port Arthur Civic Center — smooth.
Gabriel Medrano, Sr. and Debra Skillman, both of Port Arthur, said the process was better this time than when they evacuated for Rita. Skillman said she was “anxious” about the evacuation, but Medrano said he was ready after evacuating for Hurricane Rita.
“We’re evacuating for the hurricane to Texarkana. We went to Lufkin for Rita and stayed at St. Patrick’s Church,” Medrano said. “I was like, here we go again, but it was a lot smoother this time. Hopefully it won’t hit too hard. It could be worse than the one we had.”
Officer Mike Hebert with the Port Arthur Police Department was serving as a coordinator at the civic center. He said the fire department, EMS, the police department, volunteer CERTs — Community Emergency Response Teams, and the Texas National Guard have been working together to ensure those who need to evacuate are getting the help they need.
“We’ve been loading on the buses those with high risk medical conditions,” Hebert said. “We’re not turning away anyone who doesn’t have a ride.”
Hebert added there were several levels of people and pets to transport:
• Triage patients who must be evacuated by ambulance
• Moderate patients who are typically the elderly and some kind of medical condition
• Low-risk evacuees who have no transportation to evacuate
• Registered sex offenders, however, will not be placed on a bus
• Pets were being evacuated as long as they were either muzzled or in a pet carrier
Ford Park is Jefferson County’s command center and sent the buses to the civic center. Hebert said as the buses fill up, Ford Park is contacted to send more depending on the need.
By Saturday afternoon, 10 Greyhound charter buses were used at the Port Arthur Civic Center. Hebert said they have had an ample supply and they can always request more if the need arises. Texas Department of Public Safety troopers will escort the buses to Texarkana.
“When Rita was here, it was so chaotic, but this time has been running extremely smooth,” he said. “We’ve had great communications with other government entities including the National Weather Service. Sometimes we speak three or four times a day. We trained three years for this and so far there have been no mistakes.”
Yoshi Alexander, Port Arthur Health Director said her department were registering people with medical special needs or who don’t have a ride. In fact, they call their program AGAR — Ain’t Got A Ride. Health department nurses were also working triage to determine any special medical needs.
Yvonne Howard was registering evacuees and said the process was going and busy, but running smoothly, too.
Brent Fontenot from Port Arthur was waiting to evacuate to Texarkana. He went to Austin when Rita hit.
“It’s not as scary this time. I look at it as a getaway from work. It’s no big deal for me,” Fontenot said.
