Emergency response crews are manning Baltimore?s airport this morning, ready to provide cash, airfare vouchers, hotel rooms and phones for the first batch of American citizens fleeing Lebanon.
Officials detailed their response plan at a news conference Wednesday afternoon in the international terminal of Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, while tech crews hastily assembled computer stations to arrange transportation to the evacuees? homes around the country.
About 150 U.S. citizens are expected to arrive on the 7 a.m. flight and about 650 more are expected on five other flights through Saturday. The evacuation comes under the recommendation of the U.S. State Department, and Maryland officials said the federal government selected the state to host the repatriation center because of its Department of Human Resources? expertise in service during emergencies.
“We did it with Katrina, we did it with Montgomery County with the flooding a few weeks ago, and we?re doing it now to get our citizens back from the Middle East,” said Floyd Blair, the department?s deputy secretary for operations. “This is what we do. We?re experts at what we do.”
Flights transporting additional refugees are tentatively scheduled for midnight, and from 1:30 to 4 a.m. Friday. Blair said it is unclear if the evacuees, who are flying from Cyprus after a 10-hour boat ride from Beirut, know they are Maryland-bound. As many as 20 hotels around the airport committed to the effort, Blair said.
Anywhere from 30 to 150 people from state agencies and the local Red Cross chapter will provide state-funded services, including an on-site physician, mental health counseling and day care. Blair declined to estimate the cost, but said the federal government will likely reimburse Maryland.
The state last commanded a repatriation center during the first Gulf War when citizens returned home from Kuwait, said Linnea Anderson, spokeswoman for the Red Cross of Central Maryland. One planeload of citizens passed through BWI after the East African embassy bombings in 1998.
“The Red Cross stands ready to assist with all these services, to feed people, provide beverages. … If asked, we can provide emergency communication,” she said.
