Gulf Coast Residents Urged To Be Prepared For This Hurricane Season

MEMA's Mobile Operations Center

As hurricane season approaches officials on the Gulf Coast are helping residents make sure they are prepared. MPB’s Phoebe Judge reports.

Michael and Lori Quattroy are standing next to the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency's mobile operations center in Waveland getting information about how to prepare for this year’s hurricane.

“Knowing that the hurricane season is coming up this Monday, it’s almost like here we go again, starting all over.”

The couple lost everything during Katrina, and then were hit hard again by Gustav last year. They say they came to make sure that they hadn’t missed anything in their preparations for this year’s hurricane season.

“You can’t check too many times. You know make sure you have everything. So that’s why we stopped to see if there was something new or maybe if there was something we were forgetting.”

Greg Flynn with MEMA, says the main point of the mobile command’s tour of the coast is to raise awareness of just how important it is for people to be prepared for this hurricane season. That includes having enough supplies to last for 72 hours.

“First thing is to have that disaster supply kit ready in your house. Have that three day supply of food, water, and your medication. Those are the things that are essential to get you through until state resources and county resources might be able to arrive to get you those things.”

Flynn says the other goal of the mobile command tour is to remind people not become complacent about evacuating. For every four times someone evacuates three of those will be false alarms, the problem is that you can’t guess on which one will hit.