CAMP ASHLAND, Neb. (KMTV) - — The group of evacuees being quarantined at Camp Ashland will be able to head home starting Thursday.
The 57 people have spent the past two weeks at Camp Ashland, and a spokesperson with the CDC shared how they’ve passed the time.
"In the last three or four days there's just been this spirit of relief and gratitude,” Public Information Officer Joe Smith said. “They're very thankful for the hospitality they've received in Nebraska."
Smith says those 57 evacuees have been in good spirits.
"This is a remarkably resilient group of people emotionally and physically,” he said. “We started with 57 healthy people and that's what we've wound up with."
Smith tells 3 News Now, they’ve been able to exercise, have town hall meetings to receive updates, and he says, they even held a haiku contest as they neared the end of their stay.
One poem read, "isolated souls surviving on Ashland's love, we'll never forget.”
Another said,"we're six feet apart, masks conceal our smiles beneath, eyes connect the world."
Smith also shared this haiku, “what makes time longer, quarantine with your husband, 10 days or 10 years."
He tells 3 News Now it’s been 60 years since the last time a federal quarantine was issued in the U.S.
"Tomorrow morning they'll receive their last health screening and should everybody pass that screening as we expect them to at different times throughout the day they'll be sent back to different parts of the U.S."
Smith says the people leaving tomorrow will be on 4-5 different planes heading out of Eppley Airfield.
He says 90 percent of the people will leave tomorrow, and the rest will head out the following day.
Stay with 3 News Now for updates on those evacuees.
