- Bianca Phillips
- Water creeps up to a bench on Mud Island Thursday.
At Thursday’s 4 p.m. press briefing at the Memphis and Shelby County Emergency Management Agency, Shelby County Office of Preparedness director Bob Nations said some citizens have claimed to have received flyers urging them to evacuate, but those flyers are not from the county. He said any flyers going out now are a hoax, but the EMA will soon be distributing official flyers urging some residents to evacuate.
“You will know when its official,” Nations said. “We will have official personnel delivering the message.”
Following several citizen complaints on the quality of the flood maps posted on the Shelby County Office of Preparedness website, a team at the University of Memphis has designed more detailed, colored maps showing flood zones by zip code.
Unlike the current maps, which fail to show landmarks and only list major street names, the new maps will be much more detailed. At the briefing, a representative from the University of Memphis said the new maps should be posted to the county’s flood information website by 10 a.m. on Friday. The U of M team has also developed a FAQ page for the website.
