There seems to be some debate over whether it’s sensible to take precautions during bad weather, or how much of the media exposure is ‘hype’. So I figured I’d ask…have you ever either ignored an evacuation order, or stuck around someplace in which you knew was too dangerous to remain?
I’m guilty of both…sort of.
Evacuation order ignore-ance: I lived within 6 blocks of the physical rehabilitation hospital at which I worked. Heavy rains, compounded by a recent fire in the foothills, were causing those same hills to slog and slide and redirect water right down into our area. The storm drains were flooding, the ground was soaked and full up, and the hospital was on a standing evacuation watch. We had all the patients set up to move to the <bigger, TALLER> hospital a few blocks away. We were a little short-staffed, and as I lived nearby, I decided to go home at the end of my shift, sleep a few hours, and return for another shift. This was all in the evening/night. I lived in a basement apartment; my live-in boyfriend took all his computer stuff <of which there was a TON> and headed for higher ground. I went the hell to sleep; I’d already had a double-shift and needed the winks. So when the door-knocking/pounding came and I opened it to bright floodlights from a fire truck which was going door to door trying to get people to leave, I just mumbled something or other, waved them off and went back to sleep. It’s amazing my place didn’t flood, but at that point I didn’t care if my mattress started floating, as long as I got some zzzs!
And a few years ago, in Virginia Beach during Isabel, my roommates and I ducked around the cops keeping people off the roads and hit one of the beaches. It was dark, the sand was blowing sideways, and it was immensely cool to lean into the wind and have it hold me up. We left before it got too bad…I worked for AAA at the time, and we hadn’t shut down operations until just before that…and spent the next 4 days at home playing SW:Galaxies online as trees fell around us. We lost power for about 40 minutes once, and a few roofing tiles, and that was it. We were extremely lucky; friends up in Newport News lost power AND water for several weeks. It was a mess.
Oh, and I suppose dancing around on top of a truck during a lightning storm that was striking the golf course all around us was pretty stupid. But fun!
I haven’t. The only time I’ve ever been ordered to evacuate was when there was a fire near a military housing area I lived in. When the Army tells you to move - you move!
I’ve ignored mandatory evacuation orders a few times, when hurricanes threatened the coast of SC when we lived there. I have never, however, stayed when I thought it was dangerous to stay and I was never sorry that we stayed. I have also evacuated when I felt it was necessary - for instance, Hurricane Floyd was threatening to make landfall as a Cat 3 or 4 and was a massive storm. We left for that one and I’m glad we did, even though it slowed down before it came ashore, didn’t hit us directly, and we didn’t have any damage at our house.
In my opinion, people should use their best judgment and make the decision based on as much information as possible, but they need to accept responsibility for themselves and realize that no one is going to help them out if things go pear-shaped.
1997, Miami. Based on my own observations and confirmed by a gentleman who made a living from grants he got to study the history of hurricanes in the area, Miami’s seasons appear to last 6 months, in a 2-year cycle: mild winter, rainy/hurricaney summer, cold winter (cold by Miami standards, of course), hot and dry summer. That was a rainy one; every day it would rain, excuse me, RAIN, non-stop between 7:45 and 23:45.
One day the university was declared closed. No classes and we were supposed to go home. Being graduate students, we ignored the order.
It was the only sunny day in that whole summer, an absolutely gorgeous day.
About 10+ years ago a major interstate natural gas pipeline was dug up less than a block from our house. (It’s never a good thing when a helicopter shot of your neighborhood leads off the 5 o’clock news.)
Big roaring sound all day. Took forever for the excess pressure to drain out.
Anyway, early on a fireman comes to my door and tells me to evacuate. I ask where to? They wouldn’t even let me drive out since I would have to pass by the break. (I had nowhere nearby to go. The only people that’d take me for a day were my neighbors, not a solution.) So I said I was staying put and that was that.
In the evening, Mrs. FtG couldn’t get near the house due to the street being blocked off. So she drove to the other side of the neighborhood and walked home (thru woods and over a creek, in the dark).
We’re must be hard core and not stupid cuz we got degrees and such like.