# manditory evacuation **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 3, 2002, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manditory-evacuation/130665 "2002-10-03T13:17:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![starfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/87869e/32.png) [@starfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/starfish)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2002, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manditory-evacuation/130665/1 "2002-10-03T13:17:30Z")
Obviously for things like hurricanes, the police do not have the manpower to enforce a manditory evacuation order in the time required. What is the penalty or fine for ignoring the evacuation order? ---
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2002, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manditory-evacuation/130665/2 "2002-10-03T14:07:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by starfish \* > \*\*Obviously for things like hurricanes, the police do not have the manpower to enforce a manditory evacuation order in the time required. What is the penalty or fine for ignoring the evacuation order? \*\* Without adequate shelter from a hurricane or tornado…I believe the penalty is usually death :eek: It is quite possible to build adequate basement shelters to ride out even EPIC scale storms of this type. I don’t see how the police would even bother trying to evacuate people properly prepared. OTOH government agencies have some pretty hefty powers that are granted under emergency circumstances. People without adequate shelter or provisions might just as well be deemed suicidal and 5150’d tossed into a paddy wagon for a psych eval at a local hospital (for their own good of course). ---
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2002, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manditory-evacuation/130665/3 "2002-10-03T14:27:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by starfish \* > **Obviously for things like hurricanes, the police do not have the manpower to enforce a manditory evacuation order in the time required** One other thing to note, under these circumstances, police and fire acencies will pull in all off duty personell effectively doubling or tripling available bodies for canvassing neighborhoods and such. ---
**Author:** ![Ol\_Gaffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Ol\_Gaffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ol_Gaffer)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2002, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manditory-evacuation/130665/4 "2002-10-03T16:38:44Z")
From the OP, I thought this was another poop thread.🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2002, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manditory-evacuation/130665/5 "2002-10-03T19:41:57Z")
It almost certainly depends on where you live, but I think this Savannah, Georgia website is probably typical. [http://cema.chathamcounty.org/evacuation/evacuation.htm](http://cema.chathamcounty.org/evacuation/evacuation.htm) > [@](#): > > Under a MANDATORY Evacuation: > > Government officials order all persons in designated evacuation areas to relocate to safer locations for their own safety. Personal discretion not to be a deciding factor. A mandatory evacuation order will apply to the public in general. Exceptions would include public safety officials, disaster response personnel and organizational, agency, business employees designated as “critical workforce” or “essential”. However, all of these individuals will be expected to eventually seek adequate shelter prior to the onset of hurricane conditions. Persons who refuse to comply with a mandatory evacuation order will not be arrested nor forcibly removed from their homes. However they should not expect rescue or other lifesaving assistance after the onset of gale force winds. ( The same will hold true for persons ignoring a voluntary evacuation order.) “Gale force winds” begin at 32 m.p.h. and go up from there, from “moderate” gale to “fresh” gale to “strong” gale to “whole” gale. [http://coco.essortment.com/beaufortwindsc\_rmpd.htm](http://coco.essortment.com/beaufortwindsc_rmpd.htm) So this means that legally the Chatham County authorities, if they wanted to, could refuse to come help you when the wind was only blowing about 35 m.p.h. which isn’t really that fast–it’s about the strength of one of those really blustery March days, the ones that turn umbrellas inside-out. ---
**Author:** ![Coriolanus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coriolanus/32/18769_2.png) [@Coriolanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coriolanus)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2002, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manditory-evacuation/130665/6 "2002-10-03T19:56:44Z")
I’ve heard that law-enforcement/rescue folk will have stubborn folks sign a ‘release’ form that effectively says 'I know I’m facing death and destruction." It pries some reluctant folk away - yet folks have a right to live on their property. In 1938 Long Island (and New Jersey) was crushed by a hurricane that nobody saw coming (it’s first landfall was around Atlantic City). Hundreds of thousands of people now live in areas that were underwater back then. Evacutation? ---
**Author:** ![Coriolanus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coriolanus/32/18769_2.png) [@Coriolanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coriolanus)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2002, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manditory-evacuation/130665/7 "2002-10-03T20:07:08Z")
I’ve heard that law-enforcement/rescue folk will have stubborn folks sign a ‘release’ form that effectively says 'I know I’m facing death and destruction." It pries some reluctant folk away - yet folks have a right to live on their property. In 1938 Long Island (and New Jersey) was crushed by a hurricane that nobody saw coming (it’s first landfall was around Atlantic City). Long Island got the upper-right quadrant brunt of that storm. Hundreds of thousands of people now live in areas that were underwater back then. Evacuation?