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'People knew this was no joke'By ALICIA CALDWELL © St. Petersburg Times, published July 4, 1998 The order for residents to leave Flagler County in the face of approaching wildfires came about 9 a.m. Friday. Authorities in this sparsely populated coastal county kicked into "hurricane evacuation mode," said Flagler County Sheriff Robert McCarthy. By late afternoon, McCarthy estimated, 99 percent of Flagler County's 45,000 residents had left. Other local authorities made more conservative estimates. Richard Wieser, Flagler County Emergency Management spokesman, said about half of the county's residents had left their homes. "People took heed," McCarthy said. "We've had some severe fires in the last several days so people knew this was no joke." About 200 law enforcement officers drove around the county's subdivisions, their public address systems blaring the message: Evacuate immediately. Residents responded by jamming the three main roads leaving the county and flocking to hotels in Palatka, DeLand and Orlando. Ambulances from nearby counties were called into service to transport 36 patients from Memorial Hospital-Flagler. Steve Hull, 36, waited in a line of 25 cars at a Flagler Beach gas station so he could join the procession west. "We don't know where we're going," Hull said. "They didn't tell us where to go. Just take 100 west. They told us to get out and we're going." Residents were advised to use State Route 100 to get to the inland city of Palatka 25 miles northwest or take a southbound section of Interstate 95 that was open only to evacuees. The other route out of the county was north along the coastal highway SR A1A. Some crept along at a snail's pace, moving the length of a city block in 30 minutes. Jack Fillman, chief of operations for Putnam County Emergency Medical Services, said traffic in Palatka, population about 10,000, was unusually heavy. "It's like a big city," Fillman said. "Normally you never have to wait through a traffic light, but there's a tremendous amount of traffic." Motels in Palatka, one of the first cities evacuees encountered outside Flagler, booked up early Friday. Motel workers reported a steady stream of people fleeing the fires. "Bless their hearts, we're turning them away," said Betty Davis, a desk clerk at the Oaks Motel, which has 20 rooms. "I just booked the last one to an elderly couple. I feel so sorry for them." Davis said many of the people who are coming in the door are visibly shaken. Some had time to stuff their cars full of belongings. Others left with little. "It's very scary," Davis said. "This one lady, she was shaking all over." At the Orange Tree Inn in DeLand, the "No Vacancy" sign wasn't enough to deter evacuees hoping for a place to stay. "They were coming in all night last night even with the "No Vacan-cy' sign on," said Eppie Morton, who also owns the Tangerine Inn in DeLand. "There's really tons of people coming. They're still coming in. I had some ladies in here yesterday crying, saying they lost everything." Palatka officials opened what they were calling a "triage center," a place for evacuees to stop and figure out where to go next. The Price-Martin Center, a city-owned meeting room, was staffed with emergency personnel, said Fillman, chief of operations for Putnam County Emergency Medical Services. "Our biggest concern right now is helping the people of Flagler County get to where they need to go," Fillman said. "People are coming in and being met and being sent to other places from there." Thirty-six patients were being evacuated Friday morning from Memorial Hospital-Flagler in Bunnell, said Clare Watson, a vice president for Memorial Health System. Watson said 31 of the more seriously ill patients were being taken to Memorial Hospital-West Volusia in DeLand and the rest to Putnam Community Medical Center in Palatka. Watson said the 81-bed hospital had been preparing for the possibility of evacuation and had been reducing the number of patients. "It's going very smoothly," Watson said. Ambulance crews from neighboring areas were asked to help transport the patients, Fillman said, along with three advanced life support crews from Putnam. "Fortunately it's not a very big hospital, but they do have some sick people down there," Fillman said. Scattered power outages posed problems for other emergency workers. At the Flagler County Sheriff's Office, authorities had been using generators for the last day. Sheriff McCarthy said only one room, the dispatch center, was air-conditioned. He and the rest of the crew on duty were crammed into the room. Despite the discomfort, the sheriff was jubilant at having pulled off an evacuation of Flagler without any injuries or accidents. "Right now, it's a ghost town," he said.
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or a few hours, it was gridlock as far as the eye could see.
