LIBERTY, September 11, 2008 - Liberty County is under a mandatory evacuation order as of around 6:00 PM on Thursday. During this time should you decide not to evacuate you must realize that you must be self-sufficient until this weather event is over which could many hours.

Liberty County Sheriff’s Deputies are working double shifts so that twice the number of Deputies will be on the streets during this storm than during normal conditions.

During this time, Dispatchers will man the Liberty County Sheriff’s Department Dispatch Office. However, due to weather and safety conditions, Fire, EMS and Police Services will not be available until after the event.

Mandatory evacuation does not mean that you are going to be ordered out of your house. It means that emergency services will not be available to you and that you are on your own for several hours.

There will be a brief time early tomorrow morning in which you may be able to finish last minute preparations.

During Rita most of the close in neighborhoods were completely evacuated and few people were left in town. This is not the case this time. Many citizens are riding out the storm in their home and those that evacuated during Rita know little of the scarcity of common community services and resources that occurred for two to three days after the hurricane.

This time those scarce resources will be taxed even further because there will be so many more people who have chosen to ride out the storm.

Damage from this storm is expected to be worse in Liberty than Rita was.

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