Where do you go if have to evacuate the area? (Raleigh: hotel, mobile home)

[mamasplace]

We are fairly new here and were discussing what to do in case of evacuation. It may be obvious to many of you, but there must be others besides myself who would have no idea where to go since we do not have family in any nearby state.

If you have to leave due to tornado/hurricane etc... where do you go to? A hotel further west or south?

Suggestions more than welcome! Thanks...

[redandorangeskittles]

If you're evacuating because of a hurricane, you would go away from the path of the hurricane or local shelter. The local news stations warn us well ahead of a hurricane. A tornado warning is shorter notice (or no notice), but hunkering down in a pantry/bathroom or room on the first floor/basement with no windows is all you can do unless you are close to a designated shelter. Someone else can probably tell you more about that.

If you're evacuating because Shearon Harris (the nuclear power plant south of Holly Springs) is having a critical issue, you would have to go out of the radius of the radiation (probably north and west since most winds blow from west to east).

Do you have enough emergency supplies for a power/water outage? Do you have food/medicine for your family and pets? Do you have flashlights/lanterns/candles/waterproof matches/lighters? How about first aid supplies and a radio for contacting others? Do you know your neighbors and does anyone have special needs (elderly/physically handicapped, etc)?

American Red Cross

[Francois]

I've lived here over 40 years and there's never been an evacuation.

You can't really "evacuate" for a tornado, because they come so quickly and it would be way more dangerous to be out driving around than in a safe place. Driving away from where the storm was coming from (usually the SW) BEFORE the whole storm arrived to the area would be the only "strategy".

Hurricans, same thing--luckily you get plenty of notice for them, and they'd usually be coming from the east or southeast, so just head out of town away from the storm. There is no standard "From Raleigh, we evacuate to ____" place, though. Storms of both kinds are rare.

[saturnfan]

Most homes here lack basements.

An inside room on a lower floor without windows is your best bet. However, lacking shelter underground, an F-4 or F-5 tornado is probably your route to Jesus if you take a direct hit like Joplin, MO.

[skaternum]

Yeah, the answer to the hurricane question depends entirely on the direction the hurricane is traveling. Obviously, you try to get out of its path. It's rare to evacuate because of a hurricane here, though. We're far enough inland that we don't have to. (BUT please do not take them lightly. They can do a lot of damage around here, but it's not usually directly from the hurricane itself. It's usually due to flooding or downed trees. It's serious, but not enough to actually evacuate.)

[evaofnc]

Whenever a hurricane comes our way I evacuate to the ABC Store to pick up supplies for the day or two I get off work if I'm lucky.

[Nomad99]

I find it rather amazing ... perhaps appalling .. that given the risks the WCPSS (Wake County Schools) doesn't (at least to our knowledge) proffer an evacuation plan for students. This is particularly amazing for Apex/Cary schools as they are in the red zone of any nuclear preparedness guideline. And not to mention that Harris has more unspent fuel (mostly from SC and FL) stored than ANY nuclear plant in the world. This is particular vexing as there remains NO plan to store high-level radiation waste, and there have been at least 10 problems at Shearon Harris requiring a shutdown.

Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[RedZin]

Originally Posted by evaofnc

Whenever a hurricane comes our way I evacuate to the ABC Store to pick up supplies for the day or two I get off work if I'm lucky.

Yes. You are on the standard evacuation plan.

[davidals]

Originally Posted by saturnfan

Most homes here lack basements.

An inside room on a lower floor without windows is your best bet. However, lacking shelter underground, an F-4 or F-5 tornado is probably your route to Jesus if you take a direct hit like Joplin, MO.

The November 1988 Raleigh tornado was an F-4, and it tore across North Raleigh at 1AM, with no tornado warning issued, and the death toll was shockingly low - the storm was SO loud (a friend of mine heard it 1.5 miles away from the path) a lot of people got into windowless rooms and came through it ok. Massive, massive property damage however. The tornado last year was childs' play in comparison, strength-wise.

The 1984 tornado outbreak, which likewise was far worse than last years' outbreak in sheer violence produced many F4 tornadoes that skipped through 7 counties in South Carolina and 17 in North Carolina. The death toll with those storms was higher, even with more warnings/lead time - those storms tore through rural counties and 80% of the deaths (and the 1100 injuries) were either in mobile homes or vehicles - two things you should NOT be in if there's a tornado on the ground.

Hurricanes - there's no evac notices issues away from the coastal counties. You have days of advance warning with hurricanes, so for the rare hurricane (Hugo or Fran) that actually does significant damage inland, see where it's heading, and go away (usually west) of the path, and once you're 50-100 miles away, you'll be fine.

The nuke plant is a bit trickier. Prevailing winds here are from the west (NW, W, SW), so heading west would be the safest course of action.

The only time I've considered evacuating was during the 2002 ice storm, but - after calling friends and family - there was no power pretty much from Durham all the way down to Greenville SC. My mother - in Concord - found a hotel that had power and booked a room, but she said the drive to get to the hotel was very, very scary.

[Ernest T Bass]

If you really study and learn about Shearon Harris, you'd be more concerned about a meteor destroying the planet than you would be over a major catastrophe at this nuclear power plant.