Dalton: Hanna’s advent has regional Red Cross offices getting ready for more refugees

DALTON, Ga. — With more than 80 evacuees from Hurricane Gustav staying at the First Baptist Church here, the Dalton/Whitfield County American Red Cross Chapter is waiting to see if the shelter needs to stay open for refugees from Hurricane Hanna.

In Cleveland, Tenn., the Hiwassee Red Cross Chapter that serves Bradley, Meigs, McMinn and Polk counties is directing families to the Brainerd shelter in Chattanooga.

“Mostly we’ve had phone calls from people needing financial assistance with gas money to get home or they have been staying in motels and their money is running out,” said Karen Brown, health and safety services program director for the Hiwassee Chapter office.

Hanna is predicted to strike the Atlantic coast, probably with hurricane force, by the weekend, somewhere between North Florida and Charleston, S.C.

Georgia officials are on alert, and shelters like Dalton’s are ready for the call.

“We are on three or four conference calls a day for that decision,” Laura Cleary, emergency services director for the Dalton Red Cross, said Wednesday about staying open.

“We understand Savannah may begin evacuations today. And, since we are already open and we are on the I-75 corridor, we may have people meeting in the middle,” she said.

Nearly 90 Louisiana residents who fled before Gustav were staying at Dalton First Baptist Church’s fellowship hall Wednesday. Most don’t expect to start toward home before the weekend.

Many of the evacuees here are from a single Gulf Coast church. Some of the members knew about Dalton from three years ago when they came here at the invitation of Varnell United Methodist Church. More than 20 are staying with families and friends from the Varnell church. Others came to the Red Cross shelter at the First Baptist Church on Thornton Avenue.

Still others came here because the Chattanooga Red Cross shelter at Brainerd is full, Ms. Cleary said.

Unlike after Hurricane Katrina three years ago, the Red Cross this time is offering meals and mass shelter but not money, according to workers at the Dalton and Cleveland offices.

The Dalton shelter expects to be operating this weekend, said Lane Ashworth, executive director of the Dalton/Whitfield County chapter.

For Hanna, he said, “it just depends on where the storm hits and what we are asked by the state to do.”

Last weekend, the Chattanooga Red Cross chapter called the Dalton office for volunteers to help get the Brainerd shelter open. On Sunday those volunteers came home to open the shelter here, Mr. Ashworth said.

Ms. Cleary said most of the visitors who fled Gustav are ready to go home.

But as they did during Katrina, Whitfield County schools already have agreed to allow school-age children to attend classes here until their schools open at home, Ms. Cleary said.