As Hurricane Irma barreled towards the Florida Keys today, 600 miles away in Georgia some residents under mandatory evacuation orders told DailyMail.com that they would ride out the storm in their trailers.
Georgia Governor Nathan Deal ordered the evacuation of the state’s coastal areas on Thursday, including the city of Savannah, home to more than half a million people.
Forecasts show that the storm could enter the state on Monday anywhere from the Atlantic coast to the Alabama state line and cause massive storm surges. The last time Georgia was struck by a hurricane of force Category 3 or higher was in 1898.
For some permanent residents of mobile home parks in Chatham County, located inside the evacuation zone, there was no better place to go.
Linda Rodgers, 56, who lives with her sister Jodi, said they have no place to evacuate when Hurricane Irma hits so they are staying at their home in Savannah
The sisters purchased their home in the Quacco Village three years ago and plan on protecting what they own during the storm. Linda and Jodi do not have flood insurance
The sisters have amassed a large collection of Elvis memorabilia. They plan to shelter together in the smallest bedroom if the hurricane hits
‘We don’t have the money to go and we don’t know where would be the best place anyway,’ Jodi Rogers, 50, told DailyMail.com.
Ms Rogers lives with her sister, Linda Rogers, 55, at Quacco Village Mobile Home Park in Savannah. The siblings had purchased their home three years ago.
‘We finally own something,’ Linda said. ‘We are staying here to protect what we have. The Lord is with us.’ She said that they have no flood insurance on the property.
She added: ‘Any time it rains hard here, we can get flooded. You could also walk out any other day of the year and the Lord is going to call you.’
Linda, who suffers from osteoarthritis, said that her daughter, Karla, who lives nearby in a two-story brick home, would come to collect them if the storm became too bad.
The sisters had planned to grab important paperwork and family pictures along with some of their valuable Elvis memorabilia. ‘I would really struggle to leave it,’ Jodi said. ‘I have loved Elvis since I was a little girl.’
Businesses around Savannah, Georgia have boarded up windows ahead of Hurricane Irma
On Thursday, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal ordered the evacuation of the state’s coastal areas
The sisters had gathered canned food and bottled water to survive on if they lost power and the water stopped. Their trailer’s windows are hurricane-proof and the sisters plan to shelter together in the smallest bedroom if the hurricane hits.
The first terrifying signs of Hurricane Irma arrived in Florida on Saturday afternoon with strong wind and rain in the most southern parts of the state.
In the largest evacuation effort in U.S. history, millions of people in the Sunshine State and in parts of Georgia have been told to leave their home before Irma strikes on Sunday afternoon.
Time is running out for anyone who is now planning to leave, with the outer bands of Irma arriving in parts of southern Florida with heavy rain and strong wind gusts which make it impossible to drive.
Irma is expected to track directly up through Florida, crossing the state line into Georgia early next week.
Down the street, Tammy Harper, 56, said that she too would be hunkering down in her trailer when the storm hit.
Tammy told DailyMail.com: ‘I’m not scared, I’m not running. I survived Matthew last year and David [an Atlantic hurricane which struck in 1979]. We got a lot of wind and rain then and I was sitting on my porch. If I was really threatened and scared about bigger winds, I would have evacuated, I would have went somewhere.’
Tammy, who said she had been homeless in the past, said she dreamed of owning a trailer for her whole life. ‘A few years ago, I managed to buy this place and I am so grateful to have it,’ she said.
Tammy Harper, 56, said she is not leaving her trailer during Hurricane Irma. She told DailyMail.com she is not afraid of the hurricane since she has survived several others
‘As long as I have my cigarettes and coffee, I’ll be okay’: Tammy Harper said she survived Hurricane Matthew and Hurricane David
She said that her adult children had asked her to stay with them in Rincon, a town 30 minutes north, during the storm.
‘I’m not putting any burdens on them. I’ve got two cases of water. I’m on a fixed income but I get my Food Stamps on Monday, so I have to make it until then. As long as I have my cigarettes and coffee, I’ll be okay.’
Tammy had turned over her lawn chairs and secured her bike and trash can. ‘Everyone was asking me yesterday – what are you going to do when the hurricane hits on Sunday night?
‘I’m going to stay in the front room while the power is still on. When the power goes off, I’ve got a radio to listen to. I also got one of them pocket weather radios. I bought that a while back just in case.
If we are going to get hit, it would say alert and it would let me know. But it has not gone off, it has just said wind and rains.
‘Look – the devil is a liar. If you think negative in my book it’s going to happen – you think positive and thank the Lord, it’s not going to happen.’
Tammy, who attends Baptist Church, said: ‘I don’t drink, I don’t drug. I’ve been praying and believing in the Lord and its showing on TV that the storm is moving and passing Savannah.’
Few had remained in the trailer park and young families were seen frantically packing cars and trucks full of belongings on Saturday morning. Most roads leaving the Savannah area were completely deserted but for a few cars heading inland. Tammy said she knew that some elderly neighbors nearby had no plans to leave.
One of her greatest concerns was for friends who were still living on the street. She particularly wanted to get a message to her friend, Joe, who is homeless, and offer him a place to stay with her.
Tammy said: ‘He’s a heavy-set white guy with greyish-blonde hair and a goatee beard. He’s normally around City Market in downtown Savannah. I would love to know he is okay and tell him I have a couch and he would be welcome here. I haven’t heard anything about the homeless, so it must not be a really big threat because they haven’t showed the homeless on the news. So that is a good thing.’
Tim Toler, 55, and his son, Tim Toler II, 26, were preparing to see out Irma in their mobile homes on Ogeechee Road. They have lived in the area since 2000 and seen their fair share of storms.
Tim Toler Sr., 55, and son Tim Toler Jr., 26, said if the water gets too high they are planning on boarding their boat and floating away
‘We will get through it. We’ve done it before’: Tim Sr said people in the trailer park community watch out for each other
Tim Sr, an air-conditioning contractor, told DailyMail.com: ‘Where are you going to run to? It’s a big storm, unpredictable and it’s the size of two states.
Tim Jr said: ‘With Mother Nature, you never know. She’s going to do what she’s going to do. It’s already moved further west.’
The father and son had stocked up with plenty of food and drinking water along with a back-up generator and 16 gallons of gas in case the power failed. They had also tied down everything loose in the yard which might get blown around.
Tim Jr lives in a trailer across the street from his father. He had taken his children to family in Guyton, further north and inland. ‘My kids are being taken care of and I’m here to make sure they have something to come home to,’ he said. ‘We have no flood insurance.’
His father said that if the water surges became too high, he was ready to get valuables – family pictures, titles and his guns – packed in under 30 minutes and head to a hill nearby. He quipped: ‘We’ve also got two boats sitting over there, so if the water comes up, we can float right out of here.’
Tim Jr also pointed to a vacant, two-story brick home standing nearby which they would go to if necessary. In their small RV park, they estimated about 50 per cent of residents remained in their homes.
‘We are a tight-knit community, people look after each other,’ Tim Sr said. ‘We will get through it. We’ve done it before. My buddy Joe, he’s 75, he’ll be here with me [during the storm]. And Dwayne who lives nearby, he’s disabled, he will be with me too.’
The father and son said that they were fully aware of the risk they were taking.
Tim Sr said: ‘I understand that we’ve stayed and it’s a mandatory evacuation, so we are on our own. But with the weather around here, it’s like God’s fixing to take you out every single day sometimes. We deal with flooding almost every week, we are used to this.’
Tim Jr added: ‘Like the governor said, often these situations, you see the best in everybody.’