Video: Hurricane Gustav Evacuees Head Home

By Linda White
Reporter
Published: September 5, 2008

More than 12,000 Hurricane Gustav evacuees were in 64 Alabama shelters this past week. On Thursday, buses were put into a staging area at the Alabama State Fairgrounds. On Friday those buses picked up evacuees and headed for Louisiana.

The cleanup is under way at area shelters including here at the BJCC, after Louisiana evacuees boarded charter buses for the ride home.  It was quite a sight as charter buses lined 19th Street North.  Hurricane Gustav evacuees were finally going home.

Evacuee Lillian Lang said, “I’m grateful wherever God led me, ‘cause he protected all of us.“

Lillian Lang and her daughter Nazaree were grateful to board buses for the trip home - hopefully shorter than the ride here.

Lang said, “It’s only a four-and-a-half hour ride but with these buses, maybe six, I don’t know.  It took us 12 hours to get here, so that’s nothing compared to… getting here was worse. Going back won’t be that worse.“

As evacuees boarded buses, Gov. Bob Riley and Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford thanked city workers, volunteers and said good-bye to our visitors from the west.

Gov. Riley, talking to a shelter worker, said, “Thank you for coming. Thank you for what you’ve done.  Well, we all worked very hard, that’s all.“

As even the littlest of evacuees helped load buses, some still weren’t sure what they’d find when they returned home.

Lang said, “And there’s still not much power in New Orleans. So we don’t know if we’re going home to power or not.“

Power or not, thousands of evacuees are just glad to go home. They’ll be taken to two receiving stations, then will have to board more buses for the trip to their communities.