Gulf Coast Prepares for Hurricane Season

Mississippi is gearing up for the beginning of another hurricane season. MPB’s Phoebe Judge reports on how officials believe Mississippi will fair.

In less than a month Mississippi will begin another hurricane season. Last year the Gulf of Mexico experienced two major hurricanes, Gustav and Ike. While Ike slammed into Texas, Gustav just missed the Coast of Mississippi and hit Louisiana. One issue for Gulf Coast states is that hurricanes tend to intensify rapidly over the warm waters of the Gulf, making it more difficult to predict where and when they will hit. But Bill Read, Director of the National Hurricane Center says it’s likely to be a busy season,

“Well we are still in that active cycle that began in the mid-90’s, and I’d say because of that even if we have a less active than the past few seasons it will still be a risk of activity and besides it only takes that one storm.”

The good news says Mike Womack Executive Director of the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, is that the Gulf Coast is better prepared for hurricanes than ever before. With two new highways to be used as evacuations routes, and two brand new shelters which can accommodate thousands,

“And the additional shelter space means we don’t have to use school buses to evacuate people to central Mississippi. Evacuations are dangerous in themselves particularly if you have a fragile population, people with some health needs and that sort of thing. So the more shelters that we can build closer to the coast, the safer we are.”

The hurricane season runs from June 1st until the end of November.