# Why They Stayed: Hurricane Victims and Socio-Economic Class **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 31, 2005, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-they-stayed-hurricane-victims-and-socio-economic-class/319435 "2005-08-31T15:24:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![CantUseMyRealName](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@CantUseMyRealName](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CantUseMyRealName)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2005, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-they-stayed-hurricane-victims-and-socio-economic-class/319435/21 "2005-09-01T00:38:28Z")
i have never had to evacuate (thankfully), but i seem to remember seeing the coast guard helping with a lot of evacuations in the past. were there enough coast guard units left in the states to handle evacuations? or don’t they do that any more? ---
**Author:** ![CantUseMyRealName](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@CantUseMyRealName](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CantUseMyRealName)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2005, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-they-stayed-hurricane-victims-and-socio-economic-class/319435/22 "2005-09-01T00:42:10Z")
national guard! not coast guard :smack: ---
**Author:** ![tsarina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f4b2a3/32.png) [@tsarina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tsarina)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2005, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-they-stayed-hurricane-victims-and-socio-economic-class/319435/23 "2005-09-01T16:29:12Z")
I’m a former member who re-upped upon reading this because I \even sven\'s post made me so angry, and I felt I needed to reply. I moved to New Orleans from Michigan last Thursday and was going to start classes at Tulane’s School of Public Health this week. I heard on Saturday that the hurricane was set to bear down on New Orleans, and since I didn’t know what to do, I asked around to see what people in my building were doing, and we were told to just stay put, that the building would stand with minimal flooding, as it had in all the previous storms. Imagine our surprise when we found out Sunday morning that a mandatory evacuation had been ordered! So before you get high and mighty and condemn the people who stayed put, remember that a lot of us had ONE DAY in which to gather up our things, find a way out of the city, and battle our way down clogged highways to safety. To my knowledge, very little public transportation was running. The streetcar lines were shut down in case the power went out, and I saw buses heading uptown, but none going downtown to where my car was parked and where the on-ramps to the highways were. I drove past the train station and didn’t see anyone waiting there, nor did I see any trains, so I assume they weren’t running either. Everyone who didn’t have a way out was just told to get to the Superdome, and that’s the only place I heard of that was taking people. You have to understand that information was hard to come by, even for those of us that had televisions and radios. No one was driving down the streets with a bullhorn telling us where to go or how to leave; it was every man for himself. I was able to get out with my car and get about thirty miles out of the city, where I could fuel up, but I passed many people by the side of the road who’d run out of fuel. Where are people in cars supposed to go if they can’t fuel up? I was also lucky enough to make my way to a shelter in Mississippi, since I didn’t know anybody in the area, and eventually made my way to my brother’s house in Tennessee, where I am now. What are people supposed to do that don’t know anybody outside the state? All the hotel rooms from New Orleans to Memphis are booked, and besides, what can you do if you don’t have any money to pay for one? I can’t condemn the people that stayed put because if I hadn’t been blessed the way I was, I could’ve had to stay there too. So don’t be so quick to condemn them. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2005, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-they-stayed-hurricane-victims-and-socio-economic-class/319435/24 "2005-09-01T16:53:57Z")
Well, I’m certainly not condemning those who had to choice about leaving, but I still am surprised by the number of folks who remained, for whatever reason, but clearly did not seek shelter in the Superdome. No judgement, just confusion. ---
**Author:** ![rayh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@rayh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rayh)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2005, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-they-stayed-hurricane-victims-and-socio-economic-class/319435/25 "2005-09-01T17:02:19Z")
Some things just make you [weep](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4204906.stm). ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2005, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-they-stayed-hurricane-victims-and-socio-economic-class/319435/26 "2005-09-01T17:32:37Z")
> [@CantUseMyRealName](#): > > i have never had to evacuate (thankfully), but i seem to remember seeing the coast guard helping with a lot of evacuations in the past. > > were there enough coast guard units left in the states to handle evacuations? or don’t they do that any more? > [@CantUseMyRealName](#): > > national guard! > > not coast guard :smack: National Guard units certainly are still mobilized for natural disasters, but a great many units are now in Iraq. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2005, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-they-stayed-hurricane-victims-and-socio-economic-class/319435/27 "2005-09-01T17:41:48Z")
> [@tsarina](#): > > I’m a former member who re-upped upon reading this because I \even sven\'s post made me so angry, and I felt I needed to reply. Glad you’re OK—_are_ you OK? I remember the feeling of being trapped and helpless with nowhere to go and no one to help you, on 9/11 and during the most recent blackout in NYC—they tell you to “get out,” then close down the city and give you no _way_ to get out. Wouldn’t even let us walk through the Lincoln Tunnel! ---
**Author:** ![Ponder\_Stibbons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponder_stibbons/32/343_2.png) [@Ponder\_Stibbons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponder_Stibbons)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2005, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-they-stayed-hurricane-victims-and-socio-economic-class/319435/28 "2005-09-01T17:51:07Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > … they tell you to “get out,” then close down the city and give you no _way_ to get out. You know, I was disturbed about that all the way back on Sunday when I heard on the news that “mandatory evacuations” had been ordered, but at the same time, all the airlines had stopped service to (and therefore _from_) NO, and no special provisions had been made or even considered regarding trains and bus service. The Federal government has FEMA all set up to clean up after a disaster, but a lot of this one could’ve been avoided if there had _really_ been real, concrete plans to evacuate the city. Why weren’t the airlines flying people out? Why weren’t all the trains and buses that could get to NO by, say, mid-Sunday headed there to get people out? But no, everything just SHUT DOWN and the vast majority of residents faced with a need to evacuate simply had no way to do so. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2005, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-they-stayed-hurricane-victims-and-socio-economic-class/319435/29 "2005-09-01T17:54:24Z")
I want to retract my previous statements. The more I read, the more I learn there was next to no attempt to evacuate the poor. Public transportation really did shut down when the evacuation notice was given. There really were no busses out of town. Many people were stranded when their cars ran out of fuel. There are no shelters. There is no food. There still isn’t much in the way of plans for getting them out of there or setting up camps. People are still spending hundreds of dollars a night to stay in hotels until their money runs out and they are back in the streets and have lost their paltry savings. The national gaurd refuses to go to parts of the city where there is violence. We simply abandoned the poor. For an interesting comparison, look at the captions of these two photos (login may be required) [http://news.yahoo.com/photo/050830/480/ladm10208301530](http://news.yahoo.com/photo/050830/480/ladm10208301530) [http://news.yahoo.com/photo/050830/photos\_ts\_afp/050830071810\_shxwaoma\_photo1](http://news.yahoo.com/photo/050830/photos_ts_afp/050830071810_shxwaoma_photo1) ---
**Author:** ![Ponder\_Stibbons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponder_stibbons/32/343_2.png) [@Ponder\_Stibbons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponder_Stibbons)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2005, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-they-stayed-hurricane-victims-and-socio-economic-class/319435/30 "2005-09-01T17:58:25Z")
> [@even sven](#): > > For an interesting comparison, look at the captions of these two photos (login may be required) > > [http://news.yahoo.com/photo/050830/480/ladm10208301530](http://news.yahoo.com/photo/050830/480/ladm10208301530) > [http://news.yahoo.com/photo/050830/photos\_ts\_afp/050830071810\_shxwaoma\_photo1](http://news.yahoo.com/photo/050830/photos_ts_afp/050830071810_shxwaoma_photo1) I’ll … be … damned. I wouldn’t have believed it if you had simply said it. It’s sad to see that kind of outright racism … ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2005, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-they-stayed-hurricane-victims-and-socio-economic-class/319435/31 "2005-09-01T18:21:09Z")
Getting back to Socio-economic status, how about the differences in occupations which may be involved. Person #1 is a corporate tax attorney. He doesn’t usually work on weekends and if he does, he can work at home through a high speed internet connection. He has full benefits, direct deposit, and vacation days. He also has several credit cards and is able to obtain a credit line increase should it ever be necessary. Person #2 is a cashier at the Stop-n-Shop. He has to work weekends and knows he would be fired if he called off during a panic weekend. He’s paid by payroll check which is cashed at a check cashing place. He has fewer benefits and doesn’t have vacation days which can be used for evacuation. The one credit card he has is maxed out and can’t immediately get any credit short of payday advance loans. Who is more likely to evacuate? Who has the lower “cost” of evacuating? I deliberately left out vehicle access. Still, if having a car is necessary in New Orleans, obviously person #1 is more likely to own a dependable car than person #2. ---
**Author:** ![Cornelius\_Tuggerson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Cornelius\_Tuggerson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cornelius_Tuggerson)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2005, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-they-stayed-hurricane-victims-and-socio-economic-class/319435/32 "2005-09-01T19:55:28Z")
> [@even sven](#): > > [http://news.yahoo.com/photo/050830/480/ladm10208301530](http://news.yahoo.com/photo/050830/480/ladm10208301530) > [http://news.yahoo.com/photo/050830/photos\_ts\_afp/050830071810\_shxwaoma\_photo1](http://news.yahoo.com/photo/050830/photos_ts_afp/050830071810_shxwaoma_photo1) That is just rediculous. Those out there who think looters should be shot need to clarify - are you gonna shoot looters and “finders” or just the former? ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2005, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-they-stayed-hurricane-victims-and-socio-economic-class/319435/33 "2005-09-01T21:02:28Z")
> [@Bearflag70](#): > > Do they do air lifts before the storm hits? > > It seems more effective to get a bunch of people in a cargo plane beforehand than to try to pluck them off a rooftop by helicopter afterward. That would mean the people would have to evacuate to the airport. By default, aircraft are the first assets removed because they are the most sensitive to high winds. a 40 knot crosswind is a real problem in an airplane and those speeds are reached well before the damaging winds arrive. ---
**Author:** ![Dahnlor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dahnlor/32/533_2.png) [@Dahnlor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dahnlor)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2005, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-they-stayed-hurricane-victims-and-socio-economic-class/319435/34 "2005-09-01T21:12:44Z")
> [@Ponder Stibbons](#): > > I’ll … be … damned. I wouldn’t have believed it if you had simply said it. It’s sad to see that kind of outright racism … Yahoo! News has put up a page to clarify their position on the captions (basically saying “We didn’t say it, blame AP!”) and linked to a few articles on the subject: [http://news.yahoo.com/page/photostatement](http://news.yahoo.com/page/photostatement) According to the Salon article: > [@](#): > > “When we see people go into businesses and come out with goods, we call it ‘looting.’” On the other hand, [AP’s director of photography] said, “When we just see them carrying things down the road, we call it ‘carrying items.’” So while it’s easy to point and cry Racism, there’s may be more to the caption’s choice of words than the subject’s skin color. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2005, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-they-stayed-hurricane-victims-and-socio-economic-class/319435/35 "2005-09-01T21:38:51Z")
> [@tsarina](#): > > So before you get high and mighty and condemn the people who stayed put, remember that a lot of us had ONE DAY in which to gather up our things, find a way out of the city, and battle our way down clogged highways to safety. To my knowledge, very little public transportation was running. The streetcar lines were shut down in case the power went out, and I saw buses heading uptown, but none going downtown to where my car was parked and where the on-ramps to the highways were. I drove past the train station and didn’t see anyone waiting there, nor did I see any trains, so I assume they weren’t running either. Everyone who didn’t have a way out was just told to get to the Superdome, and that’s the only place I heard of that was taking people. I don’t see your logic. This was a class 4 hurricane building to a class 5 (only because there isn’t a class 6 category). They were talking about sustained winds above 150 mph. That’s like one giant tornado. Even if the building withstood the hurricane, what did you expect would happen to the town? I’ve never been to New Orleans but I remember listening to discussions of the Lake Pontchartrain levee problem last year. It was a ticking time bomb. If I know this then every adult in New Orleans should be aware of it. Hurricanes are just too big a topic to ignore along the Gulf Coast. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2005, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-they-stayed-hurricane-victims-and-socio-economic-class/319435/36 "2005-09-01T21:43:01Z")
Careful, man. You’re sounding like a “hater” or something. ---
**Author:** ![Hippy\_Hollow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hippy_hollow/32/4841_2.png) [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2005, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-they-stayed-hurricane-victims-and-socio-economic-class/319435/37 "2005-09-01T21:43:58Z")
great insights and comments from those who have been in situations like this, and **tsarina**. I am from Texas (inland) and we constantly get warnings about hurricanes, twisters, etc. We get 'em all the time and they don’t get the attention they likely deserve. Until a twister came through a town north of us and killed a few people. I worked at the residence halls at a uni in Atlanta and I was responsible for writing a tornado evacuation procedure. Getting students to understand the importance of the evac procedure was frustrating, because no-one thought it could happen there. I don’t think this is unlike the sentiments held by many people who stayed behind. The pragmatic difficulties in leaving for the poor and low SES New Orleans residents have been well documented. There’s also the fear that what little you have might not be there if you leave it. Even if you can afford to get out, what about your home, clothing, furnishing, books, electronics, etc.? Some people who live in the most desperate housing projects are opportunistic and have no problem stealing from their next door neighbor if it’s an easy target (i.e., unoccupied). The initial reports after the hurricane stated that NO had dodged a bullet, the storm missed the direct hit on the city. It wasn’t until the levee broke that the flooding really got out of control. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2005, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-they-stayed-hurricane-victims-and-socio-economic-class/319435/38 "2005-09-01T22:07:54Z")
This is not limited to New Orleans. Before the hurricane struck I started an office conversation about disaster planning. Nobody thinks about tornados but they are a serious threat in my area. The people without basements had no contigency for riding out the storm. All it would take is a number of plastic 50 gallon drums buried up to the top (and a little ingenuity). ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2005, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-they-stayed-hurricane-victims-and-socio-economic-class/319435/39 "2005-09-02T00:49:58Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > This is not limited to New Orleans. Before the hurricane struck I started an office conversation about disaster planning. Nobody thinks about tornados but they are a serious threat in my area. The people without basements had no contigency for riding out the storm. All it would take is a number of plastic 50 gallon drums buried up to the top (and a little ingenuity). Funny you should say this because I asked about this very thing today at the museum in which I work. It wasn’t the people for which I was concerned in this case, because we have plans for safely evacuating people, and a safe area in case of tornadoes. My thought was: what about the artifacts? We have some extraordinarily precious things on the first floor of our museum buildings-- things which are literally priceless, one-of-a-kind and important to our state’s history. Our manuscript/document archives alone are an incredible treasure, and they amount to only a tiny portion of our collection. There’s nothing you can do to save the artifacts if a tornado is coming. You only have a few minutes warning, if that. But our area is also prone to floods, which you are often warned of before they arrive. To my dismay, I discovered that no plan existed, or had ever been considered. I asked our administrator what we would do. Our complex is huge but our staff small. He replied thougtfully that a plan ought to be devised, but said that there were so many other projects that needed to be finished that it was almost impossible to get around to working on it. ---
**Author:** ![sturmhauke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@sturmhauke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sturmhauke)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2005, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-they-stayed-hurricane-victims-and-socio-economic-class/319435/40 "2005-09-02T09:13:02Z")
> [@Kevbo](#): > > I think there is a lot to the “cry wolf” problem. > > People along the coast have heard hurricane warnings thier entire lives. Even when one did hit now and then it was not nearly this bad…most of the time it hit somewhere else anyway. > > Lay people in general just don’t understand the concept of risk and probility. It is human nature to equate “no problem this time” to “the risk was overstated in the first place”. Very, very true. Does [Hurricane Ivan](http://www.usatoday.com/weather/hurricane/2004-09-14-new-orleans-storm_x.htm) sound familiar? > [@](#): > > More than 1.2 million people in metropolitan New Orleans were warned to get out Tuesday as 140-mph Hurricane Ivan churned toward the Gulf Coast, threatening to submerge this below-sea-level city in what could be the most disastrous storm to hit in nearly 40 years. > > Residents streamed inland in bumper-to-bumper traffic in an agonizingly slow exodus amid dire warnings that Ivan could overwhelm New Orleans with up to 20 feet of filthy, chemical-polluted water. About three-quarters of a million more people along the coast in Florida, Mississippi and Alabama also were told to evacuate. Well, Ivan landed in Alabama instead. Some people probably thought, “Yeah, whatever, Katrina isn’t gonna hit here either, I’ll board my windows and buy some extra food and that’ll be it - crap, I’m stuck in a nasty lake of death.” There’s a story about the Mongols rushing one of the gates in the Great Wall every day for a year, but veering off at the last second. At first the Chinese guards prepared to fight off the Mongols, but as time passed they grew lax and finally ignored the Mongols entirely. At the end of the year, the Mongols didn’t veer off, smashed their way into China, and had a very successful raid. All because the guards thought, “Yeah, whatever, those Mongols are a bunch of blowhards - crap, I’m full of arrows.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-they-stayed-hurricane-victims-and-socio-economic-class/319435.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-they-stayed-hurricane-victims-and-socio-economic-class/319435.md?page=3)