As Hurricane Isaac made its slow churn through the Gulf of Mexico, some coastal residents took no chances, boarding up their homes and heading north to ride out the storm.
But so far, Columbus has not seen the anticipated influx of shelter-seekers, though state tourism officials and local hotels remained ready to assist Tuesday afternoon.
The relatively weak storm, which hovered between wind speeds of 70 to 75 miles per hour for much of the day, may have caused Mississippi residents to rethink plans to evacuate, especially as Isaac took a more westerly route than originally forecast, making landfall as a Category 1 hurricane in a remote area of southeast Louisiana around 6:45 p.m. Tuesday.
Earlier in the day, Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley lifted a mandatory evacuation for flood-prone areas of Mobile and Baldwin counties, but evacuation orders remained in place for portions of the Mississippi Gulf Coast and low-lying parishes in Louisiana. New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said he would not issue an order to evacuate unless the storm strengthened to a Category 3 hurricane, which was not expected.
Concerned coastal residents began calling hotels throughout the Golden Triangle on Sunday to book lodging, but by Tuesday, many were having second thoughts.
At the Columbus Fairfield Inn, only a handful of families had sought shelter by late afternoon, with roughly half the anticipated evacuees canceling.
“I think a lot were just getting prepared and are noticing it’s not going to be as bad as they thought,” General Manager Cristina Bastow said Tuesday. “I heard some others saying they’re just going to stay home.”
At America’s Best Value, front desk clerk Arlene Dillard said she had one cancelation, with more than half the hotel’s 47 rooms still vacant.
Because of the fluctuating room availabilities, state and local tourism officials stayed in close contact throughout Tuesday, with websites for Mississippi Tourism and Travel, along with the Columbus-Lowndes Convention and Visitors Bureau, updating vacancy lists twice a day on their websites.
CCVB Executive Director Nancy Carpenter said the Jackson-based Mississippi Economic Council, the state’s Chamber of Commerce, sent messages to tourism bureaus and chambers throughout the state, asking them to assist Isaac evacuees. The Mississippi Development Authority, along with other agencies, also joined efforts to help.
During Hurricane Gustav in 2008, the Jackson call center handled more than 10,000 calls, Carpenter said, and hotels in Columbus were filled to capacity.
“We’re thankful we can participate and help those who are living in this uncertain time right now with the potential bad weather,” Carpenter said. “We’re going to keep updating through Twitter, Facebook and our website. Anything we can do to help, we stand ready.”
Hurricane Isaac, which made second landfall near Port Fourchon, La. early this morning and hovered 60 miles southeast of New Orleans, continued to pummel the Gulf Coast today, with the National Hurricane Center at its 4 a.m. briefing reporting wind speeds of 80 mph and a leisurely west-northwest pace of eight miles per hour.
The storm is expected to dump as much as 14-20 inches of rain on the coastal region, resulting in significant flooding. A portion of Highway 90, from the Biloxi Bay Bridge to the Bay St. Louis Bridge, was underwater by late afternoon Tuesday and remained closed to traffic early this morning.
Carmen K. Sisson is the former news editor at The Dispatch.
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