With lessons learned from the Grenada evacuation, Charleston County officials are preparing for the possibility of a hasty civilian evacuation from Central America. ``I guess that the national network interviews of Americans in Panama made me think in terms of that. Basically, it's just headlines until you start seeing people and their concerns about things like that,'' William J. Knowles, director of Charleston County's Department of Social Services, said Friday. During the past three weeks, social services employees have been assembling ``survival boxes'' containing items ranging from registration forms to diapers. They also have a stockpile of quarters for any new arrival who might need to make a telephone call. The repatriation would be similar to the last-minute handling of the more than 500 evacuees flown to the Charleston Air Force Base after the 1983 invasion of Grenada, said Knowles. Though the Charleston Air Force Base has not been designated a civilian evacuation landing zone, Knowles said it is the most logical and convenient for the large aircraft known to supply American bases in Central America. ``We were very lucky with Grenada because this line of government dealt with that line of government right up to the State Department. But with something like an evacuation, you never know what may happen,'' he said. ``It's just been a prudent ground effort to muster the resources of an agency at a minute's notice,'' he said. ``We don't want to be in a position of having to run around looking for this and that.''
