By Denise Malan
A new state law will allow police to arrest people who don’t leave town under mandatory evacuation orders.
As it stands, officials cannot compel people to evacuate, only warn that those who stay behind won’t have any emergency services at their disposal. The new law gives county judges and mayors the power to authorize use of “reasonable force” to remove people from the area.
The law, passed this year, takes effect Sept. 1, in the heart of hurricane season in Texas. It also applies to other disasters, such as fires or floods.
Don’t expect police to go door to door arresting people or forcing them from their homes if a hurricane is headed toward Corpus Christi.
“If the hurricane is arriving here, we’re going to be doing the best we can to hunker things down, to make sure we have as many special-needs patients evacuated, to prevent crime and looting,” Corpus Christi Police Cmdr. Mark Schauer said. “We’re going to have a hard enough time preventing crime, let alone arresting people who don’t leave.”
County Judge Loyd Neal agreed that arrests for ignoring orders are unlikely.
“I don’t have a jail big enough to put 20,000 people in,” Neal said. “You have to hope people will use good sense. The majority of people usually do.”
Schauer sees the law more as a tool to compel people to leave, or to be used in special situations. For example, officials could issue a mandatory evacuation for the beaches, giving police the authority to arrest people who go storm-watching and put themselves in danger.
A man died after being swept off a Packery Channel jetty last summer as he watched swells caused by Hurricane Ike as it headed toward Galveston.
The law also makes people who must be rescued after ignoring mandatory evacuation orders civilly liable for the costs of the rescue.
A mandatory evacuation order often is a course of last resort, for a variety of economic and logistical reasons. Hospitals and nursing homes must move patients, and businesses must let workers leave town.
The evacuation provision is part of a larger bill overhauling the emergency response code after Hurricane Ike. The bill also directs the Governo
Aftermath News 
