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It is not even that, it is that it can be physically impossible. Many of the storms we get now are just geographically huge. The amount of people who get on mandatory evacuation lists are enormous, which means supplies are just wiped out. There is not enough gasoline for the people who need to leave, especially if you are talking about a storm that may impact an area that could take several hours to drive into a location of safety. All of the people in that zone area going to be filling up their cars as well. I had a friend in Florida last year who wanted to evacuate for Irma, but she couldn’t find gasoline anywhere. Instead she just waited in line for hours to go to the dump to get rid of anything that could fly around outside and then went back home.
Where do millions of people go when heavily populated coastal areas are in the path? There just aren’t enough spaces, the roads aren’t big enough, the gas stations can’t hold enough gas, the list goes on. While it would be nice if it were possible, it just isn’t.
When you get five days' advance warning, that's plenty of time for people to evacuate, but everyone wants to play the "Wait and See" game, and then converge on the same highways 12-24 hours before the storm. It makes one wonder why scientists even bother developing the technology that allows us to predict these things with a fair degree of accuracy if no one is going to heed the warnings. Might as well be victims of chance, like in the old days.
I wanted to mention another thing employers also telling people they must report to work even when the state says stay off the roads and a lot of my relatives work for companies like that .
Unless one works in an essential services industry wherein reporting to work, no matter what, is an expectation of the position, no one has to go to work if doing so would place his life in peril. Too many people think that they have to go along with any unreasonable request or expectation of an employer, because they are fearful and weak-minded. I don't go to work if there is too much snow on the road, and I have never been fired for it. Likewise, if the roads in my area were perilous or impassable because of heavy rain or flood water, I would stay home. If enough people did that, those employers would stop being silly and realize that they should close for the day.
Honestly, simply, and plainly, I don't understand what it means when people say that can't afford to escape a foreseeable natural disaster. I didn't understand it during Hurricane Katrina, and I don't understand it now.
If I needed to evacuate my home for my own safety, there are people I can call upon who would give me shelter until I could return home or move elsewhere. If I could not drive to them, they would come to get me, or arrange other travel. Don't you (and all the others who claim that they cannot afford to leave) have at least ONE friend or family member willing to make sure that you are safe and well during a natural disaster? How can that be? I would shelter a casual acquaintance during an emergency, as would many of our fellow humans, so how can some people claim to have nowhere to go?
Honestly, simply, and plainly, not everybody is as fortunate as you. Not everybody has someone they can count on, or a safe casual strangers couch to sleep on, or enough means and money to evacuate, pay for lodging, or the money to move elsewhere.
While I 100% encourage evacuations for those in unsafe areas, I also understand not everyone can.
Sometimes people don'''t have the money to move to hotel or travel to friends/relatives.
Sometimes people are afraid of being looted by gangs that do come into danger areas to poach/steal what they can salvage
Sometimes people worry about taking their pets even though shelters in many areas do take pets if you follow the rules
Sometimes people just think they are special
Life has risk from the moment of conception until the last instant you breath--
This is about RECOGNIZEABLE risk...
And there is a certain bravado that comes from standing up to a hurricane that seems to affect many people who want to live the "free life"...
I see it along the coast pretty often...
You probably didn't see the Facebook video of the man and woman and their two dogs sheltering in his pickup truck after their house in Rockport area of TX was flooded and had roof lifted...
They managed to use the truck like an escape chamber but they were screaming for people to come rescue them when they were in that dangerous situation after ignoring ALL the evac orders...
If your life depended upon it, wouldn't you spend your last $50 to fill up your gas tank and drive 200 miles to safety, even if you had to sleep in your car when you got there?
Honestly, simply, and plainly, not everybody is as fortunate as you. Not everybody has someone they can count on, or a safe casual strangers couch to sleep on, or enough means and money to evacuate, pay for lodging, or the money to move elsewhere.
While I 100% encourage evacuations for those in unsafe areas, I also understand not everyone can.
Then, that's really ****ing sad! What kind of life is a person living if he can't count on ONE other human being out of seven billion?
why even bother to ask, we do not have the right to judge anyone's reasons....for them, each one of them, they must have had a valid reason, be it due to ill health, the expense, the fear of leaving their property at the mercy of vandals...whatever!!! I don't live near the coast, I'm 127 miles from the shoreline. the power intermittently keeps going on and off, i am alone. old and frightened, but if a tree limb comes crashing thru my roof like it did exactly one year ago? I want to be here, to call immediately for help, to mitigate damage as much as I can. I bought 5 tarps, I bought $50 worth of dry ice. Everything got hauled inside, all my sculptures on the lawn, all my tin and metal animals from Mexico. I taped my windows, the gusts have gotten to 47 mph, but the worse is yet to come inland.... Saturday and Sunday will be long long and probably terrifying. I live on an acre of land, deep into the woods, surrounded by 300 trees or more. I'm old and if a tree decides to come down on my house, so what if i die. I lived my life. I am just taking up way too much oxygen and emitting way too much carbon dioxide. It's my choice. and each person makes choices for themselves and no one gets to judge any of us.
If you don't have money stowed away for severe weather and chose to continue living in a severe weather region then I don't know what to tell you. I guess you're gonna kick the bucket!
I am guessing by that post that you would have stayed in the WTC tower if you were an office worker on 9/11 just because the PA system said so? Authority asked you to stay so you did, right?
Apples and Oranges.
5 people have already died from this storm because they stayed behind.
People who have actually ridden out hurricanes in their city before have the most knowledge about whether to go or not. I would trust their judgement over someone who hasn’t been in that position themselves and this includes hella city officials and weather people who scream run run run!
When a storm is going to come up to 13 feet, it doesn't take a genius to figure out to leave. 5 people so far have been killed because they didn't leave. Your experience in a storm means nothing, the storm doesn't care about your experience.
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