Gulf state emergency preparedness agencies confirm mass evacuation plans

Wayne Madsen Report – June 28, 2010

A well-placed source in California told WMR that the California Emergency Management Agency (CEMA) has been briefed by its counterpart agencies in the Gulf coast states that there are plans to conduct a mass evacuation of millions of Gulf coast residents due to the catastrophic environmental and public health effects of the BP oil disaster.

CEMA officials have been briefed on the planned evacuations by counterparts in the Louisiana Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, the Alabama Emergency Management Agency, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, and the Florida Division of Emergency Management.

The Gulf states’ emergency planners stressed to their California counterparts that they are dealing with a disaster of unprecedented proportions and that contingency plans are being constantly updated and revised on ways to deal with the transformation of the Gulf of Mexico into a deadly “toxic soup” of oil and Corexit 9500 oil dispersants and the atmosphere into a dangerous mixture of hydrocarbon gases.

CEMA was briefed on the impending mass evacuation since California would be expected to absorb a large number of evacuees from the Gulf states. CEMA officials did not say how the state of California, which is virtually bankrupt, would pay for the influx of hundreds of thousands and perhaps greater numbers of evacuees from the Gulf coastal region.