BILOXI, MS (WLOX) - Miranda Harrington's evacuation story is complex.
“Who's really ever ready for something like this to happen?” said Harrington.
She and her husband were in Biloxi for her father-in-law's funeral when they learned Tampa, FL was under a mandatory evacuation.
“I had my kids still in Florida, so I had to bring my friends and family up here to bring my kids here with me,” said Harrington.
Her friend, Mellissa Moss, along with her spouse and their 5-month-old baby brought Harrington's children to Biloxi. They spent a few nights in Biloxi, then in Louisiana with family. After that, they tried contacting FEMA to get a hotel room, but found themselves in a bind.
“We drove two, two and half hours just to get here to come to find out that we won't be able to stay at the hotel because paperwork with FEMA didn't go through as they said it is,” said Harrington.
The two families say they resorted to sleeping in their cars.
“To call all these people and go all these places to explain our situation is just embarrassing, because the way they look at you. They just look down on you,” said Harrington.
Between gas money, hotels, food, baby formula, and more, they exhausted all their resources.
“Now we're here, and now we're stuck. We're trying to get back home, and we don't really have any means, any way to get back home,” said Harrington.
The sand and sun may seem like a vacation to the kids, but it's far from that for their parents.
“Normally, with vacation time comes paid time off work. Nobody has paid time off work when it's sudden like this,” said Mellissa Moon.
The families are a reminder that evacuating may be the safest thing to do, but not everyone has the means to do it.
Copyright 2017 WLOX. All rights reserved.
