Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island and the air station at Beaufort, South Carolina, will no longer be evacuating thousands of its personnel as Hurricane Florence continues to barrel toward the East Coast.
Brig. Gen. James F. Glynn, the commanding officer of Parris Island and the Eastern Recruiting Region, rescinded the evacuation order Tuesday evening in light new information showing the hurricane trending away from South Carolina. South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster also lifted the mandatory evacuation for Beaufort County.
The South Carolina recruit depot and air station were ordered to evacuate on Monday. Parris Island started the evacuation process Tuesday morning and pictures posted to the Facebook run by the depot showed recruits with bags packed waiting by commercial buses to depart to a Marine logistics base in Albany, Georgia.
Some military staff and family had already evacuated the region on Sept. 11. Those individuals will be reimbursed for those expenses, according to the evacuation termination ordered signed by Glynn.
“Personnel who have evacuated already will have until 11:59 p.m. Wednesday to return to the local area on funded travel per the forthcoming evacuation status termination order, in support of regularly scheduled operations resuming Thursday morning,” Glynn said in a message posted to Parris Island’s Facebook account Tuesday.
The recruit depot expects to be back to normal operations Thursday morning.
“Safety is still our principle focus. With any decision there is a degree of risk, and we believe the logistical efforts of moving all personnel to MCLB Albany now exceed the risk of remaining at MCRD Parris Island,” Glynn said.
Family day activities aboard Parris Island were canceled for the week. But Charlie Company still held a graduation ceremony Wednesday, which was recorded and posted to Parris Island’s social media accounts.
Shawn Snow is the senior reporter for Marine Corps Times and a Marine Corps veteran.
