Preparations
As Gloria approached the East Coast of the United States, National Hurricane Center director Neil Frank called it the "Storm of the Century", due to its intensity and potential track over the densely populated region of New England. Such a track gathered the attention of many people, and led to the evacuation of 380,000 people along the coast from North Carolina to Connecticut. In Maryland, officials implemented lane reversing to expedite the evacuation process, a policy many other coastal states use.
Officials advised 95,000 citizens along the New Jersey coastline, an area that rarely experiences hurricanes, to evacuate. Cape May County—the most vulnerable part of the state and among the most susceptible in the entire country—would require 36 hours in 2005 to evacuate the 100,000 citizens and 900,000 tourists that were commonly present during busy summer weekends.
Offices and classes of Harvard University closed only for the third time in the 20th century, the previous cases being the New England Hurricane of 1938 and the Blizzard of '78. Although Gloria's winds downed numerous trees and caused tens of thousands in damage in the area, overall effects were much less than expected.
Read more about this topic: Hurricane Gloria
Famous quotes containing the word preparations:
“At the ramparts on the cliff near the old Parliament House I counted twenty-four thirty-two-pounders in a row, pointed over the harbor, with their balls piled pyramid-wise between them,—there are said to be in all about one hundred and eighty guns mounted at Quebec,—all which were faithfully kept dusted by officials, in accordance with the motto, “In time of peace prepare for war”; but I saw no preparations for peace: she was plainly an uninvited guest.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In all the important preparations of the mind she was complete; being prepared for matrimony by an hatred of home, restraint, and tranquillity; by the misery of disappointed affection, and contempt of the man she was to marry. The rest might wait. The preparations of new carriages and furniture might wait for London and the spring, when her own taste could have fairer play.”
—Jane Austen (1775–1817)
“The most evident difference between man and animals is this: the beast, in as much as it is largely motivated by the senses and with little perception of the past or future, lives only for the present. But man, because he is endowed with reason by which he is able to perceive relationships, sees the causes of things, understands the reciprocal nature of cause and effect, makes analogies, easily surveys the whole course of his life, and makes the necessary preparations for its conduct.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)