There’s also been a fairly clear bifurcation of the people who stay behind into two categories. The first category is the stupid, who have stayed because they don’t think the consequences will affect them. The second is the set of people who due to poverty/limited means, or due to other issues like medical fragility, mobility issues, etc… can’t evacuate under their own power, so to speak.
What I’m curious about is the best way to handle this? Ideally just about everyone except for essential workers such as police, fire, utility workers, etc… would evacuate to somewhere safe and ride the storm out there.
Is that a reasonable expectation? What expectations should society have for those who choose to say? What expectations should those people have of everyone else if they do that?
What expectations should we have of the poor/otherwise unable to evacuate themselves? Should they be required to register with the county/city/state for evacuation assistance? How far ahead of time? What level of heroic efforts should the authorities undergo to identify and evacuate these people in the absence of them calling themselves out?
What level of preparedness help should there be ahead of time for people in general who live in areas like this? I know Texas has a tax-free weekend set aside for preparedness supplies, but I doubt that’s really that helpful.
I’d like to add a third. Those that have limited choices due to pets. AFAIK most shelters will not allow pets and there are those of us that would consider leaving a pet behind as leaving behind a family member.
I don’t know that I agree. It’s not the government’s responsibility or problem (at any level) to feed and house someone’s pets. Especially when they could be half-feral, not well house broken, etc… Not to mention a lot more expensive and labor intensive as well.
I thought I heard (second hard, so take it for what it’s worth) that FL was being more generous with taking in pets during Ira. I know a lot of people who consider their pets family members and won’t leave without them.
I would add a fourth: people who probably could evacuate, but who lack the executive function to handle the logistics. I think there’s actually a ton of people like that, but most have a spouse, a parent, or a friend who manages it for them. But some don’t. I have no idea how to handle that.
There are others who have evacuated before and had a bad experience. My brother-in-law lives in Houston, and the first time he tried to evacuate, just getting out of Houston took him more than 5 hours and he almost got caught out on the road when the hurricane hit. So he bought a generator and now he just hunkers down when a hurricane blows through.
Yeah, “evacuate” is much easier said than done. It involves difficulties, and even dangers, that may or may not be worth it if you don’t yet know how bad things are going to get in your area.
Yeah, generally speaking my beloved Mother has all the common sense I lack. But, I don’t see her going anywhere without her beloved cat Farfel. Fortunately, Mom lives on the third floor of a four floor building and the only tree that could have possibly caused her trouble fell in a storm a few years ago.
My son is in Florida, near Gainesville. He has never evacuated. He feels safe and secure in his home. Then there are their two dogs. Additionally he is considered a first responder (he works in a prison).
We live in a great age where we have the ability to warn people about hurricanes and tornadoes on the way. We also have the ability to communicate and help people following unpredictable events like earthquakes. People seem to be well educated about known local problems. There will always be a few who don’t follow the advice to evacuate or seek shelter for one reason or another but the alerts and follow up information should have been and were the top priority. Our remaining problems may just be the same people who always ignore advice even if it will save their life, the people who feel lucky or special, the absurdly contrarians, and the desperate useless types who do nothing ever and expect society to take care of them anyway. I don’t think we can do much better than what we have done already.
I think there are a fair number of otherwise intellectually normal people who would be overwhelmed at the thought of all the little things they needed to do to evacutate, or just not register it was relevant to them. Most people like this have someone who takes care of them.
What happens if you are warned of a mandatory evacuation, have the resources and ability to evacuate, but refuse to leave and have to be rescued? You are responsible for the rescue effort’s cost, even if that means the cost of removing your body. Why should society be accountable for the cost of your bad and selfish decision?
There can be limited exceptions if it’s not practical for you to leave, and evacuation aid should be made available to anyone who can’t afford it or isn’t able to evacuate on their own. That aid should get you to higher ground and nothing more.
For the people who stay, the local news channel takes it upon themselves to make sure the viewing area is saturated with storm preparedness/aftermath tips, from the catchy “Turn around, don’t drown!” (which I think originated with the state) to reminders to stay away from downed power lines and not run generators in your house. The immediate area typically doesn’t see the level of danger that somewhere like Florida experiences, so evacuations aren’t discussed, but even here a few emergency shelters will open. This time around, I did notice that news crews were emphasizing the conditions in which line crews could and couldn’t work, I suppose in an attempt to stem discussions of “why aren’t they working on the power lines, the hurricane is over!”
My workplace goes a step further, providing detailed information about how to prepare for prolonged power outages or the possibility of evacuation. I can remember years when they distributed checklists to help employees prepare. The main office is in Louisiana though, so they would have a bit different view of hurricanes.
It is logistically impossible for 2+ million people (estimate from NBC New York, Sept. 27) to comply with mandatory evacuation orders within 48 hours. Fox Weather reports that 2.5 million had been ordered to evacuate by the 24 hour mark. Millions more were under voluntary evacuation orders.
We don’t have the physical infrastructure to handle that. Our culture promotes individual car ownership. Half a million cars bumper to bumper at fourteen feet each is 1,325 miles, compared to maybe 1,500 miles of highway in the entire state. Remember that almost the entire state was within the storm’s predicted path. The last thing we want is people stuck on the highway in category 3 or 4 winds.
What about flights? Airlines were being crushed with departures, which drives up prices. It should go without saying that even ignoring costs, the airports can’t handle a significant fraction of the millions of people who were ordered to evacuate. The best month on record at RSW was March this year where some 750,000 passengers deplaned. That is over a whole month. But evacuation orders were issued in Lee County on Tuesday morning, 9/27, with shelters first opening at 9am. RSW closed at 9pm, and the 15-foot storm surge came the next morning.
I live in an earthquake zone, and what we need to do to prepare is drilled into us over and over. Ditto for when I lived in Louisiana. People may ignore the advice, or be too lazy to follow it, or let the water get stale. People in fire zones should pack go bags - PG&E does tons of ads on this. Nice, since they start half of the fires.
(You’re not the only cynical one.)
So how many did manage to evacuate? A million? Less? Where did they go? I’m sorry if I’m asking questions that are common knowledge on your side of the pond, but it seems incredible that people were asked to do something which is physically impossible, then they were blamed when they didn’t do it.