No Vacancies in Bainbridge

Published 3:37 pm Thursday, October 6, 2016

The Cole family is staying at the Holiday Inn after evacuating from Hurricane Matthew

The Cole family is staying at the Holiday Inn after evacuating from Hurricane Matthew

Phone calls to local hotels in Bainbridge will get you one answer as soon as they answer the phone- “We are booked full.” As Hurricane Matthew bears down on the east coast from Miami to South Carolina, the hotels have filled with evacuees.

“We have six phone lines and they are ringing constantly,” Ashley Alderman the manager at the Hampton Inn said.

The Hampton’s 69 rooms have been booked since Tuesday with many of the evacuees coming from the Fernandina Beach and Jacksonville areas.

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Lisa Ader and her family arrived at the Hampton Inn Thursday morning after leaving Palm Bay at 4 a.m.

“When I first heard it was a Cat 5 for a few hours I thought lets go make reservations, probably won’t come and I’m really glad we did,” Ader said. “I looked at a map and I looked at the cone and this was far enough west that I figured we would probably be safe.”

She booked four rooms for her family and friends and is planning to stay through at least Saturday.

The Holiday Inn is booked through Saturday. They were already roughly half full with Sprint on the Flint participants and the remaining rooms were quickly reserved on Wednesday according to General Manager April Shockley.

“Its crazy, the phone has not stopped ringing,” Shockley said. “Had a guest that came and said the closest she found was three hours away.”

At the Holiday Inn, the Cole family arrived from Ponte Vedra Beach with multiple family friends after finding a room at the last minute during their pre-hurricane party Wednesday night. Tomorrow they are planning to head to Tallahassee where they found a room for the rest of the weekend.

The Quality Inn has no rooms through at least Sunday according to manager Demetria Sapp with nearly 100-percent of their rooms booked by people evacuating from Matthew.

“Every three minutes my phone rings with people trying to find somewhere to stay,” Sapp said.

Currently, she is suggesting that they check Albany for rooms, but according to the Albany Herald, as of Wednesday evening there were very few rooms available. Alderman at the Hampton said that Tallahassee is also completely booked as people escape from Matthew’s path.

Georgia Governor Nathan Deal has ordered a mandatory evacuation for coastal counties east on Interstate 95. The effect counties are: Bryan, Chatham, Liberty, McIntosh, Glynn and Camden.

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