Sitting in a car on the Northern Parkway in mid-May hardly engenders hurricane anxiety, yet the pale blue sign with a tiny white arrow that says “Evacuation Route,” pointing due north certainly raises questions.
For one, who?s in charge if the order were given to evacuate the city?
“It?s a collective; all the agencies contribute their expertise,” said police department spokesman Donny Moses. “It would be a joint effort.”
Recently, city officials met for two days with officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to discuss, among other things, the city?s evacuation plans. The police, fire and transportation departments discussed details including how many cars the agencies believed could leave the downtown area in the event of a mass evacuation.
“Our department estimated 35,000 to 40,000 … cars per hour out of the central business district,” said Frank Murphy, deputy chief of the Traffic Division, part of the Department of Transportation.
Murphy, who has worked on city evacuation plans, said plans for a disaster are continually revised.
“It?s a work in progress,” he said, adding that each scenario dictates a different plan. “It?s a case-by-case basis.”
Murphy said general evacuation routes are noted in maps that “highlight routes getting out the city.”
These maps are used to plan for allocating police manpower to direct traffic, though he said common sense still applies. “If you?re on Reisterstown Road, you might as well … use Reisterstown Road,” Murphy said.
Still Murphy said that the plans also depend on the disaster, which could be anything from a Category 4 hurricane to a chemical spill or a terrorist attack.
“There are some events that will require everyone to leave the city entirely, or getting a mile away might be fine,” Murphy said.
Murphy cited as an example a Category 4 hurricane headed up the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, a scenario recently simulated by the National Weather Service, which predicted an 18-foot storm surge that would inundate most of downtown.
“For that type of storm, everyone within a mile of the Inner Harbor would have to evacuate,” he said.
Raquel Guillory, spokeswoman for Mayor Martin O?Malley, said the mayor would coordinate any evacuation.
“As chief executive of the city, he takes the lead in coordinating the agencies and response in these types of emergencies,” she said.
