(MENAFN- Gulf Times) The number of people in the US state of Florida under orders to evacuate in the face of approaching Hurricane Irma has climbed to 6.3mn, authorities said yesterday. The increase means an additional 700,000 people have been told to get moving since Friday, when state officials said 5.6mn people were under evacuation orders.
The state's division of emergency management said it 'estimates that 6.3 million Floridians have been ordered to evacuate.
The state has a population of 20.6mn, and with the massive Category Four storm forecast to move south to north Florida Governor Rick Scott has said everyone should be ready to evacuate.
With Hurricane Irma barrelling down on Central Florida, Apopka resident Carmen Nova had a decision to make. A Mexican immigrant living in the country illegally, she knew her mobile home was at risk in the storm.
But the 30-year-old mother of three also knew that seeking protection could pose its own hazards.
In a time of increasing public sentiment against illegal immigration, undocumented immigrants like Nova are nervous about reporting to authorities, even if it is to take refuge from a hurricane.
'There's an internal storm, there's an external storm, and there's a political storm, and they're all targeting this community, said Sister Ann Kendrick, a Roman Catholic nun, community organiser and immigrant rights advocate.
'They're getting hammered, said Kendrick, who has worked hard in advance of the hurricane to convince undocumented immigrants that it is safer to take shelter than to remain in less-than-sturdy homes.
Immigrant fears in the area were heightened in recent days after the sheriff in neighbouring Polk County pledged to check criminal records of people seeking shelter.
Although the statement did not mention immigration status and officials later clarified that undocumented immigrants would not be targeted, the warning nevertheless reverberated in migrant communities.
In Apopka, a town of about 50,000 people outside Orlando, Kendrick had plenty of work to do in advance of the storm. The area's undocumented immigrants historically came to the area to work on farms but in more recent years have shifted to construction, landscaping and housekeeping. Many live in manufactured housing.
Kendrick said she fielded calls throughout the day on Friday from undocumented immigrants who wondered if it was safe to report to shelters. About 50 people, including several undocumented families, were waiting in line outside a shelter at Apopka High School when it opened at 9am yesterday, Kendrick said.
'They trust the schools, and they trust us, so if we tell them it's safe, they're coming, Kendrick said.
Nova, who cleans houses for a $15 an hour while her husband works as a landscaper for $12 an hour, was among those who decided to seek shelter, saying she would put her fate in God's hands.
'If they ask for papers, I don't have them, Nova said from her mobile home with boarded up windows as she prepared her family to move to the shelter. 'The authorities will have to do what they have to do. I am not going to live in fear.
More than 200 drinking water systems out of 2,238 affected by Tropical Storm Harvey are still shut or have notices for customers to boil water, state and federal regulators said yesterday. An additional 101 systems are still being contacted to 'gather updated information of their status, the US Environmental Protection Agency and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said in a joint statement.
Tropical Storm Harvey brought several feet of rain over a period of several days along Texas's Gulf Coast, resulting in historic floods for the continental United States, hitting utilities like drinking water and sewage treatment. The EPA and TCEQ said that 161 drinking water systems have boil-water notices, and another 52 are shut down.
Of the 1,219 wastewater treatment plants affected, 40 are inoperable in the affected counts. The regulators also said 15 dams have been damaged out of 340 in the affected areas. As of the end of 2015, the latest data available, the state had 6,915 public drinking water systems.
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