Irma evacuees find
respite, assistance along
Georgia highways
By Brandy Mai
D
uring a natural disaster, citizens search
myriad sources to receive information on
evacuations, travel and sheltering. An
unlikely ally in helping those citizens is
Georgia’s visitor information centers, which assisted
more than 233,000 people across the state during
Hurricane Irma. The centers not only provided a much-
needed respite during evacuees’ travels, they also
provided useful information on lodging and traffic.
The Tourism Division at the Georgia Department
of Economic Development attributes their success in
helping so many people from lessons learned during
(Hurricane) Matthew and their ability to gather
information from multiple sources to provide to travelers.
“Our experience in Hurricane Matthew told us that
hundreds of thousands of evacuees would be coming
into Georgia looking for shelter and lodging to wait out
the storm,” said Emily Murray, Senior Communications
Specialist for the Tourism Division. “When we saw Irma
heading our way, we tried to be as responsive as we
could.”
When someone is traveling for vacation, one of the
first places they look for information is the state tourism
website, explained Murray. Knowing that out-of-state
evacuees and Georgia residents also turn to tourism
sites during a disaster, the Tourism Division recognized
that it could be a valuable resource for evacuees.
Murray and the tourism team gathered information
from various media and social media sites, Georgia
Emergency Management and Homeland Security
Agency updates, and from tourism offices across the
state. This was then compiled into a responsive website
that travelers could use at the centers and from mobile
devices. Interactive maps were created to make
everything more accessible.
“Our team at Georgia Tourism created a Hurricane
Information Page that provided real-time hotel
availability, evacuation details, GEMA/HS updates,
FAQs and other important information,” said Kevin
Langston, Deputy Commissioner for the Tourism
Division. The temporary site they built provided critical
information to out-of-state evacuees and Georgia
Georgia Visitors Center Activity - Hurricane Irma
Visitors seen on busiest day of Hurricane Irma evacuation
Total visitors helped during Hurricane Irma evacuation operations
Total number of visitors at the Valdosta Visitors Center
10