I will put it to you like this: How many consecutive warnings would you heed if, after each one, you learn that nothing happened?
You have some threshold for something like this, right? You wouldn’t evacuate that 100th time if the first 99 times were false alarms, would you?
How about that 10th time if the first 9 warnings were false alarms?
bordelond, that is a good question. I won’t give a definitive answer, because I don’t have one. I’m the type, given an approaching storm, to carefully monitor its progress (here we have nor’easters), and to respond to the warnings in terms of storm intensity and likelihood of striking my home. Sometimes it’s a few days food, make sure we have enough batteries. Other times it’s a week’s worth of food, plenty of cash, flashlights, candles, blankets all out of storage, recheck first aid kits and medications, and more.
There’s also my employer to think about. Employers don’t want to close shop at every warning, and they don’t want employees hightailing it at every warning. So how does everyone, employer and employee alike, determine when it is time to evacuate? What if I disagree, evacuate, and I’m wrong? Or I go against my own judgment, go to work, and end up stranded there?
If told me on a Friday, I would leave work early and see to the safety of my family (shelter with good medical facilities for FiL), expecting to come back on Monday (obviously, in this situation I would not have returned). But I don’t work weekends, so that’s an easy decision. It’s also 100% opposite of what I did when Gloria hit us directly 20 years ago. People would have been calling me foolish for wanting to sit and ride out the storm (and I was), but I had a lot less at stake and 20 years ago, I was immortal (or so I thought).
As I said, I could argue either side.
This is a very good point I neglected to make.
Before danger is fully imminent, there will be much disagreement over whether or not evacuating is justifiable. Had the “New Orleans” storm track predictions come out Monday evening instead of Friday, evacuations couls have delayed quite a bit by folks taking time to call around and find out if it was OK with their bosses to leave for a while.
It’s all complcated. It’s not as simple to just cut and run two days before an uncertainly-located landfall.
No, you’re not. And a big, hearty “UP YOURS” to those who say that.
Do I think that some people are pretty stupid for building under sea level? Yes. Do I think that the people who chose to wait out a Cat. 5 hurricane were recklessly stupid? Yes.
FTR, I also think that people who smoke are recklessly stupid. But I still feel badly for them when they get cancer.
We often don’t care for their opinions. We often do care for their well-being, however.
That’s very illogical. Hurricanes lose power rapidly after reaching land, so walking inland even just 20 miles is a very healthy thing to do. Besides, it seems that those who stayed did so not because it they had no choice, but because it was merely inconvenient. Quite a few people even went and holed up in the Superdome like they did last time. Obviously, a few people may have had the bad luck to not be able to get out. That does not excuse the many who did have the chance and chose not to take it.
But it does mean that only a fool would ignore that risk and simply hope it doesn’t happen them. Risk can be managed, often quite cheaply, but only if you’re willing to recognize the threat. Too many people moving down to New Orleans did not. They built the wrong kind of houses in the wrong areas. And many are now paying for that mistake. It was not unforeseeable. I sympathize with their loss, but they can hardly expect me to feel sorry they did something willfully stupid.
Some times, bad things happen and we just have to deal with it. People who idly *let * bad things happen because they didn’t take precautions get a lot less sympathy from me.
In any case, I have a serious problem with the kinds of buildings they put up down there. They tend to skimp a bit around hurricane area for some ungodly reason. If you’re going to live in a potential hurricane zone, you ought to have sturdier stuff. This applies more to Florida, but Florida has fewer flooding problems. Here the question has little to do with the hurricane per se, but rather with ignorance of a number of problems, which the hurricane merely made clearer.
Shouldn’t be that bad. The risk is there and it will happen, statistically (and more so with the increasing wetland destruction. However, it is very much spread out over time - it may be along time between events. That means that it won’t be too bad. AFAIK, private insurers mostly got out of the flood market *because * the Fed was is in it. Nobody outside of thsoe few areas whre the Feds were making it available wanted any.
Armchair quarterback much?
I’m 200 miles from shore it was still a bitch. I can only imagine how much fit it would have been to be stuck in the open 20 miles along the road. Of course, if you walk 20 miles along any of the interstates leading out of New Orleans to the west and north (I haven’t driven on NO’s eastern approaches much) you’ll find yourself on…get this, a bridge over a bayou.
I’m sure being on a bridge over the bayou in the middle of a hurricane is “a very healthy thing to do”.
I agree with the fact that the people who stayed were stupid, but ‘They should have just started walking. It’s what I would have done’ is just moronic.
-Joe
Back to the OP…
I think some people (not the OP or other posters here, I mean others) are confusing “they deserved it” with “they should have expected it.”
Of course no one deserves to be hit with something like this, or with an earthquake or tornado. I think we can all agree on that.
But if you live an an area that is prone to such natural disasters, then yes, you should expect such things to happen and be prepared for them. If you live below sea level or along the East Coast, know what you would grab and where you should go when you hear reports of a massive category-five hurricane moving towards your town.
If you live in San Francisco, I would assume you would know what to do in the event of an earthquake, and that you would have supplies.
If you live in the midwest (Kansas or Oklahoma), I would hope you either have a storm cellar or know what to do when the emergency siren goes off.
If you live someplace that gets a lot of snow, make sure you have snowtires and plenty of food and batteries when they start calling for a blizzard.
Common sense, people.
Of course no one deserves it. But you should expect it and be prepared for it and know how to handle it.
I wouldn’t be too sure about that. The latest news is that the mayor of New Orleans is now saying that there may be thousands dead in his city alone:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/31/katrina.impact/index.html
Ed
But they have told me, over and over, and it hasn’t happened, and yet I keep listening and doing whatever I can to keep safe.
Surviving a tornado that passes within a mile of my house doesn’t mean that I’m going to stand outside and take pictures of the next one.
Just heard that on the TV in our coffee room.
I hope that he is overestimating to the same degree my own mayor overestimated casualties from the 9/11/01 attack (early estimates were about 4 times higher than final numbers). Everyone wins if that’s the case.
I’m not saying that NO and Biloxi residents should not have taken precautions (including seeking a shelter if they could not shore up their residence) in response to a hurricane warning. However, they have far less practice preparing shelters and seeking shelters for a hurricane than many “Tornado Alley” residents have doing the same for tornadoes. Tornado frequency far outstrips hurricane frequency, and thus the threat is taken much more seriously, even for those who haven’t been struck.
Of course. But the problem with N.O. is that it’s barely an island, let alone a penninsula. It’;s going to be a lot safer to walk 20 miles north than to stay where it’s flooding! Besides, as has been noted, the Superdome is accepting refugees right now. It’s as safe as place in the world up to 200 mph winds.
Thought this would be relevant here. From the “Katrina” MPSIMS thread:
Thank you for understanding.
Walking north means that one must be able to walk on water, as they must traverse Lake Pontchartrain.
It is indeed flooded and devastated 20 miles north of the city. Google “Slidell, La.”
The Superdome was indeed safe from winds, but it is no longer accepting refugees. In fact, they are being evacuated away as we speak.
Yeah! Don’t worry about the thugged-out rapists that might be sharing the bleachers with your teenage daughters. They’re hella safe!
I got a question for you, Mr. Let’s Walk 20 Miles North. Where do you go when you get 20 miles north? The news keeps telling you the hotels and motels are full and that the roads are gridlocked. And guess what? You know by the time you make 20 miles, the hurricane will be on top of you.
From the comfort of our dry, sanitary homes, we can scold people for not seeking “safety” at the Thunderdome. But you know what? I can understand why people wouldn’t want to seek shelter there, based on what they were reporting in the news about the whole thing being for poor, homeless people. I can see even myself weighing the options: stay in my house and cope with no power, possibly flood waters (no one ever imagines their house will be completely underwater) OR deal with the horrors of sharing a roof with thousands of people who are possibly crazy, criminal, or financially desparate. Add children to the mix, or elderly parents or beloved pets and it becomes harder to convince yourself that the Thunderdome (I know it’s real name) is the best way to go.
Katrina dealt me a little blow here in Miami, but it doesn’t even register on the same scale as what happened to these poor folks. Not even in the same galaxy.
Finally, I find it hard to believe that one of the most vocal critics of these residents (the ones who “chose” to live in such dangerous places, that is) would be a poster who has dealt with the desperation of unemployment and has voluntarily “lived” in dangerous places himself as a member of the military. People live where they can get a job. The first thing Dopers like to do when people complain about not having a job is to yell MOVE! I couldn’t find a job in NJ so I moved to south Florida, which was just struck by a hurricane and is constantly threatened by them. If I had turned down my job offer for fear of getting hit by the big one, then people would have called me an idiot for being so “picky”. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do, for the survival of you and your family.
There are risks wherever you live. To be sure, I wouldn’t move myself to a place like Wayne, NJ (which floods, like, every year) but New Orleans? I’m a marine biologist, fully aware of sea level rise and all that, but if I had gotten a job offer there, I more than likely would have taken it. Hell yeah!
I wish people would either sympathize or shut up about the whole thing.
Unfortunately, some people seem clueless on the concept of “now is not the time.”
When someone dies in a car crash, it may be a graphic illustration of the importance of seatbelts. But to preach that sermon to his wife while the poor fucker’s corpse is still warm is rude to the point of obscenity.
This was a point I hesitated to make earlier, but monstro nailed it. The Superdome is safe from hurricanes, but is dangerous in other ways. Plus, it’s pitch-black and sweltering with no power. There’s also no water or drainage there.
When someone from out of the area says “Why didn’t they just go to the Superdome?”, I know I can ignore the rest of what they have to say about the hurricane. They just haven’t a clue. Not their fault, and they’re not bad for not knowing … they just don’t.
Let’s see if I have this right.
People living in parts of Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas, Illinois, and Tennessee should move because of the New Madrid Fault which caused what are estimated to be the largest earthquakes known in the U.S.
People living in New York, Washington D.C., and near nuclear facilities and chemical plants should move because of the danger of terrorist attacks.
From California to Alaska=Earthquake Zone, at least one volcano
West, Southwest, Midwest, South = Draught Zone
Midwest=Tornado Alley
Eastern Seaboard, especially the Southeast=Hurricane Zone
Gulf Coast (Declared unfit by several Dopers)
Shanendoah Valley – Blue Ridge Mountains – Smokey Mountains: Polluted air, acid rain
Hawaii: volcano
Those Northern border states are going to get awfully crowded.
Airman Doors: Consider the way you phrased things earlier in this thread:
<snip>
<snip>
(I know that you qualified your comments later, but by then I had ground down a few teeth.)
Imagine for a moment that someone whose opinion you usually respect had made these same comments about your buddies in Iraq – that they were all dumb fucks who have only themselves to blame and never should have volunteered in the first place – and that we shouldn’t be wasting our resources on them, blah, blah. What if someone claimed they could leave whenever they wanted to?
What you see on TV are mostly the younger people. Do you think that is all that had to stay behind? Do you know why they stayed? I would think there are many different reasons.
I am amazed at how far removed some of you must be from the realities of grinding poverty, responsibilities for elderly and sick people, and having no workable choices.
Re: Mayor Holloway and his “This is our tsunami” quote. Can we all just bear in mind the fact that the guy was probably running on no sleep and as much of whatever kind of caffeine he could find, was preoccupied with damage control plans, perhaps had friends and family members directly affected by the hurricane, and in the midst of all that, someone stuck a mike in his face and asked for—probably demanded—a quote?
So that’s what he came up with. And it wasn’t the reasoned, well-thought-out, highly researched with cite to prove it statement that some Dopers would have made. Yet somehow, I don’t think his constituents give much of a care either way.