‘It was scary.’ Firefighters shuttled Coast casino employees to work in Cristobal surge
The Silver Slipper Casino had a plan.
General Manager John Ferrucci updated the employee emergency hot line at 1 p.m. Saturday as Tropical Storm Cristobal loomed in the Gulf of Mexico.
At the time, Beach Boulevard was clear of water and it was business as usual at the casino near the Lakeshore community in Hancock County.
“Tomorrow may be a different story,” Ferrucci said in the recording.
The Slipper, situated between the Mississippi Sound and Bayou Caddy, is in an area notorious for flooding.
He told employees they could park a few miles away, in a parking lot at the corner of Lakeshore and Lower Bay roads. A casino shuttle bus would take employees to and from work Sunday if the storm surge took over the roadways.
“Drive safe,” he said in the recording. “This is going to be fine. It’s going to pass quickly, and we’re going to be back to normal before you know it.”
But things went awry.
The flooding in Waveland and Lakeshore began early Sunday morning as Cristobal inched its way closer to shore. By the afternoon, the casino was surrounded by about 5 feet of storm surge.
Employees who finished work could not get to their cars, and those coming in for a later shift didn’t have a shuttle because it had filled with water and broken down. It was impossible to leave or get to the casino by normal means.
But the casino remained open. So Ferrucci had to make a new plan to get employees in and out of the casino, and guests, too, if they chose to leave the hotel.
But was it safe? Some employees say their lives were put at risk, while Ferrucci said safety was a top priority and those speaking out are “sensationalizing this story.”
Getting to and from the Silver Slipper
Ferrucci said he gave a plan to the Mississippi Gaming Commission on what the casino would do if the surf got too high.
Silver Slipper’s 24-passenger shuttle buses would be used to shuffle employees back and forth.
The roads to get to the Slipper were already flooded at 9:30 a.m. and were closed, one employee told the Sun Herald. The employee had to be at work, and water had already crept into the first step of the bus.
The flooding didn’t stop. The employee said some co-workers got on at 11:30 a.m. and water was up to top step of the bus.
“The shuttle bus actually got swamped ... and just died on us,” Ferrucci said. “It wasn’t moving again. We were stuck.”
Ferrucci said he called the Hancock County Emergency Operations Center for assistance. The Clermont Harbor Volunteer Fire Department responded with a high-water utility vehicle to move people to and from the casino.
Fire Chief Duane Wray said about 100 employees were shuttled from 3:30 p.m. to 7 p.m., and fire crews went back later Sunday night to get more employees and a family staying at the Silver Slipper hotel who wanted to leave.
The employees were packed into the vehicle, about 20 or 30 each trip, and had to stand up as the vehicle maneuvered the flood waters, Wray said.
The vehicle was purchased from the Mississippi Forestry Commission about six months ago, Wray said, and it has been getting painted in the last 10 weeks. Seats are supposed to be installed in the deck of the vehicle so people can safely sit during transport.
“We really ain’t had time to put them in there,” Wray said.
The volunteer fire department also had a canopy for the vehicle, but it wasn’t installed at the time of evacuations.
“We didn’t have a moment to just stop our rescue, go put a canopy on it, then come back,” Wray said.
His team of five firefighters also had to perform high-water rescues for three families in the Bayou Phillips community in between Silver Slipper shuttles.
The fire crews advised the employees to “stay stationary as best as they could” and to hang on to the canopy rails to avoid falling down or being thrown out of vehicle.
A Silver Slipper employee said they were scared to move once positioned in vehicle.
A second employee told the Sun Herald there were about 20 people in their group shuttled back to the staff parking lot. Half of them “prayed before moving,” the employee said.
“The truck was leaning more to one side then the other,” the second employee said. “It started making a loud noise about halfway through. For me, it was scary just not knowing what could happen.”
A third employee said it felt like the truck could topple over because “the waves were hitting it so hard.”
Ferrucci said employees could have waited or split up into smaller groups.
“The fire chief would have made 30 trips if he needed to,” he said. “They chose to get on the back on that truck by themselves.”
Was Cristobal evacuation safe?
Three Silver Slipper employees, who spoke to the Sun Herald but asked to remain anonymous, said they felt unsafe on the high-water vehicle.
The first employee said she waited two hours after her shift to get back to her vehicle. She didn’t want to ask to be off work for fear of consequences. “Needless to say, it was a scary and stressful day,” the first employee said.
Ferrucci said employees are never reprimanded or punished for calling in to work during tropical weather and that he communicated that with managers and directors.
“Nobody was forced to come to work,” he said, noting the casino was only about half-staffed on Sunday.
During one shuttle, the rain had stopped and Ferrucci said employees told him “they were kind of enjoying” the ride without the canopy.
Ferrucci said he also offered to let guests stay at the hotel and eat at the 24-hour restaurant if they didn’t want to leave. About 20 employees wound up staying, he said.
He said the shuttle service was provided as a service for employees who wanted to come to work.
“We were doing everything we could,” he said. “They knew what they were up against.”
Fire department, Silver Slipper update
While Ferrucci and Hancock County Emergency Manager Brain Adam both said the evacuations weren’t rescues, they were done free of charge.
Wray said it’s his department’s job to help in situations like these.
“We don’t get paid,” he said, “We really don’t have an issue.”
Wray said the truck used about 10 gallons of diesel during the Silver Slipper shuttles. He hasn’t asked to be reimbursed, but said he’s confident the casino would pay him back for the fuel.
At the Silver Slipper, table games and the buffet were closed Monday as crews cleaned around the exterior of the casino, Ferrucci said. He plans to be fully operational Tuesday.
Crisotbal did not damage to the casino, he said. Water did get into some elevators, but they were cleared and fixed Monday.
Sun Herald visual journalist Alyssa Newton contributed to this report.
This story was originally published June 9, 2020 at 5:50 AM.
