Governor Tate Reeves and FEMA Administrator Pete Gaynor met with emergency managers on the gulf coast to discuss this year’s hurricane preparedness amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Gaynor says one of his biggest concerns is the capacity to social distance in general population and emergency medical shelters.
"You're going to need more square footage because of social distancing and you're going to need more time because you're not going to be able to transport the amount of people you would on a school bus," said Gaynor. "If you needed one school bus now you're going to need two."
"It sounds kind of obvious but in the moment of responding if you haven't given it thorough thought and did some extra planning you may be caught short."
During a press event Thursday, the governor announced $4 million in federal grants are going to emergency management in South Mississippi. The bulk of it went to fire departments in Bay St. Louis, Biloxi, and Pascagoula and the rest to the Department of Marine Resources for port security.
Dr. Jonathan Wilson is a chief administrative officer at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. He says they're also supplying first responders with additional protective gear, equipment, and supplies this hurricane season.
Wilson says his concern is how hospitals will manage a natural disaster with a major impact on top of COVID-19. Yesterday, Mississippi saw it's largest one day spike with 1230 new coronavirus cases reported by the Mississippi Department of Health.
"You can only surge up to a certain point and then you're surging into the parking lot where you're going to start taking care of patients," said Wilson.
"And that's really the scenario we would be looking at if these trends continue and we have a major hurricane."
Governor Reeves is urging Mississippians to wear masks in public to help slow the spread of the coronavirus, which he says is an additional challenge they've never dealt with during hurricane season.
