Alabama won’t shelter as many storm evacuees

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama has a message for its neighbors: Don’t count on us next time you need shelter from a storm. And it’s not because Louisiana evacuees made a mess last time they came.

Gov. Bob Riley said Tuesday that Alabama will take fewer out-of-state evacuees into shelters this year, so that shelter space will remain available for Alabama residents. He said the state will be especially cautious about filling shelters if there’s a chance another hurricane could affect the Alabama coast.

More than 6,500 evacuees, mostly from Louisiana, filled 28 shelters at community colleges across Alabama over Labor Day weekend last year as Hurricane Gustav neared the Louisiana coast. Most came in buses, many from the New Orleans area.

Another storm, Hurricane Ike, hit Texas about a week later. Riley said if Ike had hit Alabama instead, shelter space might not have been available for Alabama residents.

“The problem occurs when we have our shelters full and another hurricane comes in,” Riley said. “Our shelters are designed for Alabamians.”

Riley said the decision to limit the number of out-of-state evacuees in shelters was not related to complaints by some community college officials that school buildings used for shelters were left in disrepair after the evacuees returned home.

Mark Cooper, director of the Louisiana Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, said Alabama officials have informed his office that they could not commit the same level of support as last year.

“As a result, we have worked aggressively to increase in-state capacity and made agreements with other states to identify shelter space” if Louisiana residents need to evacuate, Cooper said in a statement.

After Hurricane Gustav last year, Alabama two-year-college officials asked FEMA and Louisiana emergency management officials for more than $2 million reimbursement for the cost of operating the shelters and cleaning and repairing the buildings after the evacuees returned home.

Two-year-college spokeswoman Martha Simmons said Tuesday the schools that provided the shelters had received $1.25 million from FEMA, but had not received any of some $730,000 requested from Louisiana.

Cooper said Louisiana has repaid 75 percent of Alabama’s costs for sheltering Louisiana residents. He said the remaining amount will be paid when Alabama provides documentation required in an agreement between the two states.

Riley made his comments Tuesday as Alabama officials gathered in Montgomery to review plans for the 2009 hurricane season.

A National Weather Service official told state officials at the conference that a normal or possibly below normal hurricane season is expected this year, partly because of a weather cycle known as El Nino, which sometimes causes fewer hurricanes.

But Jim Stefkovich, the meteorologist in charge at the weather service’s Birmingham office, said state officials should not lower their guard at the prospect of a normal or lighter than normal hurricane season.

“All it takes is one,” Stefkovich said.

He reminded the state officials that in 1992 there was not a named storm until late August, but that hurricane, Andrew, caused massive damage in Florida and Louisiana and was one of the costliest hurricanes ever in the U.S.