First of all, if you haven’t left Galveston County yet, time is growing short to do so. We urge you to leave and to leave now. It’s the only sane thing to do.
Officials have told us that a Category 4 or 5 hurricane will strike near us late today or early Saturday. That kind of hurricane that close will cause huge property damage, and it may well kill people. The only way to be sure that you and your family are not among the fatalities is to leave.
Now, having said that, let us also say that officials in Galveston County appear to have succeeded in mounting an effective evacuation of the county. They should be commended.
In the wake of Katrina, local emergency management officials realized they had much work to do to get ready for such an evacuation. In a matter of days, they prepared to move thousands of people — especially those citizens with special needs.
It may turn out that too many people who are old, poor, sick or otherwise homebound remained behind. But at first glance, it appears that the evacuation certainly worked better than the one in New Orleans.
Finally, permit us a word about The Daily News and its plans.
Our offices on Galveston Island and in Texas City are closed, and most of our employees have evacuated the county. It would be foolhardy to advise you to leave and ourselves remain behind. We urged our employees to leave, and we’re glad most of them did so.
Still, we are continuing to report the news and we will work hard to continue printing a paper. We have established a temporary newsroom in Houston, and if we have to flee Houston, we’ll move to Seguin to a sister newspaper, the Gazette-Enterprise.
We’re printing smaller-than-normal papers throughout the days of the storm, even though we may not be able to deliver those newspapers until after the storm passes and our employees and carrier force returns.
We anticipate most will be delivered to readers in what amounts to a vacation pack — a bundle of several newspapers at once.
Meanwhile, we’re committed to constantly refreshing our Internet Web site, so if you have Internet access, you can read the news at www.galvnews.com.
Be prepared for slower than normal response time on the Internet, however. As of Wednesday, traffic at the Web site had grown to the point that it is noticeably slowing down response times.
The people of Galveston County have experienced disaster in the past — fires, explosions and a number of terrible hurricanes. We are resilient. We will be back. And we will cooperate with one another through whatever comes in the days just ahead.
Good luck and God bless. The Daily News will be there for you through the storm.
