Sunday update: Gov. Nathan Deal lifted his mandatory evacuation orders for most of coastal Georgia today, effective at 5 p.m. He also reopened the eastbound lanes of I-16 from Macon to Savannah. Deal noted that local officials may still impose their own restrictions.
Residents will be permitted to return to Savannah/Chatham County starting at 5 p.m. today, but officials warned that some areas still lack power or water and urged returning residents to be careful. Tybee Island, connected to Savannah by a causeway that was partially submerged on Saturday, is open to residents who can show proof of residence or property ownership.
Glynn County announced that the mainland portion of the county is now open. "Be advised that life-safety issues remain and you are likely to run into conditions such as downed trees, sink holes, downed power lines," said a notice on the county's website today. The barrier islands -- St. Simons, Jekyll and Sea Island -- remain closed to all but public safety, utility or cleanup workers.
Camden County and St. Mary's authorities lifted the evacuation orders there at about 4:30 p.m. today. Earlier today the city said that bridges in town have been inspected and certified safe. See our latest coverage from the coast. End of update
JESUP, Ga. (filed at 8:30 p.m. Saturday) — It may have been spelling-challenged, but the notice on the St. Marys city website Saturday was clear: "Due not attempt to return to Camden County. Entry will not be allowed."
Tens of thousands of coastal Georgia residents heeded the governor’s evacuation order and cleared out ahead of Hurricane Matthew. But now Matthew’s gone to other shores, and many of those Georgia storm refugees are still inland, waiting for the all-clear from back home. It may be a while.
“We are still in a dangerous situation,” Gov. Nathan Deal said Saturday. “Please be patient a little while longer.”
Easy for him to say! Suzel MacCallum and her husband Kevin left their home in Brunswick, with 10-year-old greyhound mix Sammy in tow, and fled to Jesup, where the IT company they work for had reserved a block of rooms at the Days Inn. On Saturday they were ready to go home — “if we’re going to be without power, we’d rather be home” — but there was confusion about whether they would be readmitted to Glynn County.
Earlier Saturday a county commissioner posted on Facebook that even though local officials had declared it safe for people to come back to the mainland portion of Glynn — the barrier islands are still off-limits — the Georgia State Patrol was stopping returning residents and turning them away. Evidently the left hand hadn’t told the right hand to unlock the gate.
“Now we know why people stay put, because of this massive confusion,” Suzel MacCallum said.
That was a recurring theme on social media Saturday: wish I’d just ridden it out at home.
‘We have so many beautiful trees’
Gloria Ritter, 72, has lived on St. Simons Island for 52 years. At midweek, though, she and her husband and their 10-year-old granddaughter were watching the storm models on TV. Matthew, it appeared, had painted a target on St. Simons.
“We knew that it was time to go,” Ritter said. She worried, she said, that the stately arbors of St. Simons were about to come crashing down, perhaps on her head.
“We have so many beautiful oak trees,” she said. “It’s a shame.”
About a million Georgians live in the six coastal counties where evacuation was mandatory or recommended. The hardest-hit areas were Savannah and the barrier islands, where the storm surge exceeded previous records, Deal said.
When the Smith clan got orders to evacuate their home in Ellabell on the outskirts of Savannah, they had just enough time to grab a day’s worth of clothing and toiletries, pack seven adults and more than two dozen children in a 15-passenger van and an SUV and head north out of harm’s way of Hurricane Matthew.
The group managed to get the last cots at the Red Cross shelter in Macon late Friday afternoon.
Now the family is looking at another two days — at least — of life in a shelter.
“The kids really only had one outfit,” Sandra Smith said on Saturday. “We brought just enough for a day or two. We were thinking we’d be going back (by now). We didn’t realize that with the damages from Matthew, we were going to be stuck here for a while. We’re not prepared.”
Thousands in temporary lodgings
The Smiths are among some 6,000 people who remained in 29 Red Cross shelters across Georgia Saturday and are likely to be logging more time there. Another 10,500 refugees were camping at state parks, and countless thousands were at hotels or staying with friends.
All of them were waiting for the same thing: permission to go home.
Emily Murray, communications specialist with the tourism division of the Georgia Department of Economic Development, said Saturday evening that accommodations throughout Georgia continue to be pretty limited.
“A few things are starting to open because it looks like some people are starting to try to go home,” she said. “I talked with the people at GEMA, and people are going home to see how things look, but they are going to get there and see they don’t have power and will try to come back.”
Those people will then face the task of trying to find lodging once more.
‘The timing is extremely difficult to tell’
In coastal Georgia’s biggest population center — Savannah and Chatham County — things were no more settled than in other places on the coast. “As far as the timing that is extremely difficult to tell right now because we simply don’t know,” Dennis Jones, the head of the Chatham Emergency Management Agency, told the Morning News. “We don’t know the extent of the damages. We don’t know the extent of the bridges that have to be inspected. We’re just now getting into the community to evaluate that.”
On Saturday, the state closed all eastbound exits along the entire length of I-95 in the state, from Savannah south to St. Marys.
Authorities were trying to prevent travelers from heading into flooded areas or where power lines were down, Georgia State Patrol Col. Mark McDonough said.
“Your safety is in doubt if you attempt to go east of I-95,” he said.
Savannah-Chatham County officials were planning a 10 a.m. press conference on Sunday. Perhaps the answer to when folks can come home will be clearer after that.
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