Overview
About the Regional Evacuation Planning Guide
The Regional Evacuation Planning Guide was developed by the I-95 Corridor Coalition to address cross-border evacuations. Cross-border evacuations have occurred in the past and will occur again. This is ever truer as the population grows, as people continue to spread to areas that may be more susceptible to disasters and, in recent years, as metropolitan areas face terrorist risks. Cross-border evacuations may be necessary both in notice (e.g., hurricane) and no-notice (e.g., terrorist attack) events, as well as for movement which needs to occur both in heavily populated metropolitan areas and through more sparsely populated rural areas. Thus, planning for cross-border evacuations is important for natural, and intentional and non-intentional human-caused events; notice and no-notice events; and metropolitan and rural areas. States recognize the need to ensure that their own internal evacuation planning, procedures, protocols, and routing need to be congruent with those of other neighboring states particularly should the need arise for cross-border evacuations. In most evacuation incidents, the time to coordinate is non-existent or extremely limited. Without advance preparations and coordination among jurisdictions, evacuees could cross a state border and find the rules quite different from the state they just left. Planning between states is vital to ensure the evacuees can cross the borders without finding themselves suddenly set adrift.