Evacuating in the last month of pregnancy or with a newborn?

[invictus61101]

Has anyone ever done this? I am due in mid-July, but have issues with pre-term labor. I am very nervous about having to evacuate while still pregnant and giving birth on the side of the road while stuck in traffic.

I am also very nervous about evacuating with a newborn if my baby has already arrived.

Does anyone have any suggestions for things to do/pack in either of these situations?

TIA.

[JonathanBelles]

my sister did 2 years ago and the best advise is to evacuate to the nearest hospital
when the pressure drops in the hurricane, you have a 50% chance of delevery, and a 60% faster delevery time! told to me by a doctor at TGH

[southerngale]

I don't have any experience with it, but I think I can offer a way to avoid being stuck in traffic. Obviously, you wouldn't want to be separated from your doctor that far along, but if you're evacuating, I'm sure your doctor is too. I live in Beaumont also and we both know the mandatory evacuation extends pretty far north. When I evacuated for Rita, I made reservations in Jasper (which later turned out to be stupid...not far enough) on Monday when Rita was still forecast to hit Deep South Texas. I watched the model trends shift more west and as I became increasingly nervous, I decided to leave before the mandatory evacuation was ordered. The traffic was horrible Wednesday afternoon and it was taking people hours to get just a few miles and I knew that Thursday would be even worse since the mandatory evacuation was to go into effect at 6am. So I packed all Wednesday night and decided to leave about 3am, after the Wednesday traffic had died down and before the Thursday morning chaos began. It worked well as it only took me less than 1 1/2 hours to get there when it normally takes about an hour. So my suggestion would be to leave BEFORE the mandatory evacuation, perhaps even a few days ahead if you want to leave during the day. Of course that increases the chances of evacuating for nothing, but I think it's definitely worth it to avoid being stuck in traffic for 10 hours to get 15 miles! Also, if you have a plan on where you're going, talk to your doctor about it now and see what he suggests. I would just make sure you're near a hospital.

Hopefully, all of this talk is for nothing and we won't even see a threat this year! I definitely learned that Jasper is not far enough as the freakin' hurricane hit us there and it was one very scary night! I'll be going to Fort Worth if i have to evacuate again.

[bevgo]

Consider how close your hospital is to a possible danger area. I heard horrow stories about Charity in NO and a couple of the hospitals on the MS coast. At Charity mothers were seperated from their newborns. If your hospital it in a danger zone talk to your MD well in advance but even if he has no helpful advice--find a hospital in your planned evac area that offers maternity services. Some dont so be sure the one you pick does.