The OnStar motorist help line turned out to be helpful to some drivers trying to avoid traffic jams associated with the evacuation ahead of Hurricane Gustav, the Associated Press reported.
The service received thousands of calls per hour in the days before Gustav made land on the coast of Louisiana on Monday. Most of the callers calmly asked for the fastest route out of New Orleans or another Gulf Coast city.
"There's a lot of people that are stranded on the evacuation routes," said Brad Williams, a service manager who was overseeing for GM's OnStar response from a command center in downtown Detroit, according to the AP.
OnStar responded to the massive evacuation by increasing its staff to about 500 and implementing emergency plans at its three call centers in Pontiac, Mich., Oshawa, Ont., and Charlotte, N.C.
Specially trained advisers handle the storm-related calls armed with maps, information about hotels with vacancies and even locations of Red Cross emergency shelters.
Some callers were looking for a hotel room or even a loved one on the road, but most were looking for a route around evacuation traffic jams.
Government officials, OnStar advisors and evacuating motorists were all better prepared for Gustav than they were for Hurricane Katrina three years ago, the AP reported.
