Published on Thursday, June 16, 2005
in the WESH News

FHP To Issue Update On Evacuation Plan

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A new plan will be released Thursday that should help drivers get out of the path of hurricanes.

Evacuation orders in previous years have sometimes resulted in massive traffic jams along evacuation routes, WESH 2 News reported.

The Florida Highway Patrol is expected to issue an updated evacuation plan for hurricanes Thursday.

The Turnpike has been testing evacuation plans for five years, using the Florida Highway Patrol to close southbound interchanges in order to give South Florida hurricane evacuees four northbound lanes. The Turnpike began studying what they call "contra flow" after traffic jams during Hurricane Floyd in 1999.

Beginning at the Ft. Pierce interchange, traffic that normally moves in both directions would be changed so all traffic would flow north to Orlando, with no abililty to exit the Turnpike until you reach the Western Expressway, known as state Road 429, near the Lake County line.

To put the plan in motion, Gov. Jeb Bush would have to order it, and that would likely only occur in the case of a Category 4 or Category 5 hurricane bearing down on South Florida.

"The plan is that if it strikes the South Florida area, and there's a massive evacuation, there are plans that we have in place, on paper and equipment that we have prepared, so that should we have to go to a contra flow that we'll be prepared to do it, and do everything that we can to help our customers do it safely and with as much information as possible," Turnpike representative Ingrid Birenbaum said.

To make that information available in an emergency, the Turnpike would have dozens of electronic message signs telling drivers where they can enter and exit the toll road.