Galveston officials plan to give additional advance notice if hurricane evacuations are needed

GALVESTON, Texas (KTRK) -- Sunday is the official start of hurricane season, and Galveston city officials are now changing the way they issue mandatory evacuation orders.

You'll now have more time to prepare to leave if you have to. Galveston's director of emergency management told Eyewitness News that if a mandatory evacuation order is issued, a notice will be sent out a day earlier due to two construction projects along I-45.

The new policy means that a mandatory evacuation order from the island would be issued 60 hours before a storm makes landfall.

In contrast to the past, it was 36 hours.

Byron Frankland, the city's emergency management coordinator, said construction from the base of the causeway up towards Dickinson is a major reason why city officials are adding more time to make a mandatory evacuation notice.

"Going through Ike, there were several folks that decided not to evacuate, and I was with the police department on that side back then; we couldn't get to them. The water was high. We couldn't launch helicopters. We couldn't put boats out. We couldn't put fire, police, or other first responders in harm's way too. If you don't evacuate, just know that you're going to have to ride it out with what you have," Frankland said.