AUGUSTA, Maine — Maine’s coastal residents may notice new road signs going up in the coming weeks, alerting them to evacuation routes on state roads in the event of a hurricane or severe storm.

The Maine Emergency Management Agency created the new system of evacuation route signs to help residents move to safety when a storm threatens.

Director Rob McAleer says the agency used storm surge mapping from the Army Corps of Engineers to determine risk areas, examined shelter locations, and then charted the best evacuation routes.

A grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is paying for the signs, which are round and blue and feature the words “Emergency Evacuation Route” and a directional arrow. A similar design is used by all other states on the Eastern Seaboard.