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LAPLACE, LA - AUGUST 29: Rescue workers transport residents trapped by rising water from Hurricane Isaac in the River Forest subdivision on August 29, 2012 in LaPlace, Louisiana. The large Level 1 hurricane slowly moved across southeast Louisiana, dumping huge amounts of rain and knocking out power to Louisianans in scattered parts of the state. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)
It’s the question so many of us have while watching news coverage of a hurricane or tropical storm like Isaac: Who are these people who don’t leave home even as an angry storm is advancing – and what are they thinking?!
The short answer: For some, the up-and-leaving idea isn’t as easy as it sounds to those of us watching from a safe and dry distance. Actually, a 2009 article published in the journal Psychological Science sought to examine the reasons some people won’t evacuate, despite the urging or even mandates of city and state officials, by asking a group who would know: Hurricane Katrina survivors who weathered the storm at home.
“It seems like asking ‘Why didn't people leave?’ presumes that that's the best option for everyone to make,” says Hilary Bergsieker, who worked with Nicole Stephens, now of Northwestern University, on the study. The fact is, many people lack the resources to escape. Having no money, no mode of transportation and no friends or family in safe places means no choice but to weather the storm.
In the case of Katrina, those who evacuated before the storm hit were mostly white, mostly middle class; on the other hand, those who stayed were mostly black, mostly working class. The “leavers,” as the Psychological Science paper terms those who fled before the storm, had privileges that they probably took for granted: more education, more money, reliable access to transportation, social networks that extended farther away from the hurricane-hit area, and more access to news reports to warn them of the storm’s severity.
"Middle- and upper-class Americans are more geographically mobile and have more experience traveling nationally and internationally. I think that the familiarity with moving or traveling would contribute to the ability to make a plan for how to evacuate,” says Stephens, who is an assistant professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern. "On the other hand, if you have spent most of your life in the same community, then you would likely feel more attachment to your home and feel less comfortable as well as less equipped to quickly uproot yourself in response to evacuation orders."
Even if a person does have the resources at hand to make an escape, it might be unthinkable to leave behind a tightknit community like those you’d find in many parts of coastal Louisiana and Mississippi.
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A downgraded Isaac floods coastal communities and forces new evacuations, but levees still hold.
“There's sort of the physical resources factor, but there's also the psychological factors. That's your world; that's all you know,” says Bergsieker, who is now an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. And, as the thinking goes, if your neighbor tells you he’s staying, then you might stay, too – after all, if something happened to him, who would be there to take care of him if you leave? Some of the 79 Katrina survivors interviewed in the 2009 study did have the resources to go, but they didn’t have the heart to leave.
Ariella Cohen moved to New Orleans in 2007, so she wasn’t there when Katrina hit. But in 2008, when Hurricane Gustav started moving toward her city, she decided to stick it out, despite the city's mandatory evacuation order.
“I had friends who had stayed through Katrina, and I had heard all their stories about it, and so I think I also inherited all their jadedness, too,” says Cohen, who wrote about her Gustav close encounter for the website Next American City. “You know, just kind of that New Orleanian attitude of, ‘Whatever! We’re going to stay here. Do you want another beer?’” On a more serious note, her rationale for staying was: 'I’m young, I’m able-bodied and relatively fit. What if someone older and weaker needs me?' “I was, like, 27 at the time, so I was young and strong, and I would be able to help people if the time came,” says Choen, now 31, who lives in Philadelphia, where she works as an editor for the same site that published her 2008 essay.
Mistrust of outsiders – as in, people who aren’t from your community who are claiming to know more than you do about your own home by telling you to leave it – can play a part, too. “This is where you've always been your whole life, and suddenly people on the radio are telling you you have to leave? That may seem like a much more dangerous choice than to stay with people from your church, or people from your block,” Bergsieker says.
Besides, those who live in a hurricane-prone area hear these warnings all the time. It can be easy to stay in denial about an impending storm’s ferocity when the local news station has cried “hurricane” so many times before. (Sometimes that tack pans out: In Cohen’s lucky case, Gustav bypassed New Orleans.)
Read this far and still think anyone who’d ignore a hurricane evacuation mandate must be just plain crazy? That sounds about right. A second piece of the study asked both Katrina relief workers and regular folks to describe the “leavers” and the “stayers” in three words. The leavers were called independent, self-reliant, responsible, hard-working, conscientious. The stayers, on the other hand, were described mostly in negative terms: Passive. Crazy. Lazy. Irresponsible. Careless. Hopeless.
Take a dive into the comments section on this NBCNews.com story on Isaac, and the sentiment sounds about the same. Like this one: "What part of MANDATORY EVACUATION do these people NOT UNDERSTAND!" (Bold text and gratuitous use of the caps-lock key are the commenter's own.) Or this: "You were told to evacuate! Now you should be on your own and not expect others to put themselves in harms way!"
In the study, relief workers and others alike acknowledged that many of the stayers might have lacked the financial resources to leave, and yet they still used mostly negative terms to describe them. That disconnect is what Stephens was interested in exploring in the 2009 article, which argues that maybe people who “choose” to dig in their heels and remain in their communities, even when a storm’s a-comin’, actually don’t feel like they ever had a choice. Whether for financial or psychological motives, they're staying.
“In retrospect, definitely I was a bit naïve. Natural disasters don’t go by the logic of human psychology,” Cohen acknowledges. “I think that there’s a lot of it that’s hard to conceive – like, it’s hard to conceive of your own death, it’s difficult to conceive of natural disaster. It just seemed unbelievable that another storm could hit the city hard. And so I stayed.”
Keep up with NBCNews.com health editor Melissa Dahl on Twitter.
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Better question is why do we keep rebuilding homes for people who insist on living by the coast below sea level??
How long were you down there rebuilding Shakey. How many homes have you rebuilt? Perhaps we should just abandon the largest port in the us and all the refineries down there. Brilliant!!
Right you should build everyone below sea level new houses.
...
Okay back to reality. I know from experience that the number 1 reason why people don't leave is because they have no place to put their pets. They are NOT leaving their dog/cat/parrot.
Number 2 reason is other relatives. Sometimes people can't go because they can't leave their grandma, pregnant sister, boyfriend whatever. So if we all can't go, no one goes.
Journal is right. But it also points out why it's a bad idea to maintain a city below sea level. We had a chance to move NO upriver and the scientists testified after Katrina to Congress on the reason and the methods. But the musicians and bartenders in NO cried about their heritage and culture. So the taxpayers are stuck forever sinking money borrowed from China (expecting the kids to pay it back) into trying to keep NO people safe and or rebuilding their homes. Another reason people stay is the "boy crying wolf" syndrome. We see many storms that the emergency management guys call #2 or #3 in open water and the day after they hit turns out it was a #1 or strong TS. Since looters can operate just fine when the wind stops but the cops keep the proper owners out for a week or more while the looters go to work.
So, Shaking My Head, you would advocate for the government saying, "Hey--no one lives here because it fails our cost/benefit analysis"? How about the fact that New Orleans especially remains an integral port for the entire nation (and even continentally significant? How do you staff a port and serve the people who work that port if you are not going to allow people to live there? Should we also tell people to GTFO of Florida retirement communities and tourist destinations since we're always having to rebuild there as well? Or do we just really want to focus on new Orleans because the bulk of the people affected were poor?
I went, I worked on rebuilding--no where near as much as I wish I could have--and those people have just as much right to live there as anywhere else.
I'm a civil engineer and my region regularly works with flooding and levee projects (the Red River of the North and Mississippi River are major culprits). Put plainly, these people are stupid. You live there, good for you. That doesn't mean you've done flood frequency modeling or any type of scientific study for your area. If you have the means to, you should evacuate when we recommend/require it. Otherwise you're not only putting yourself, but those of your neighbors and rescuers at risk.
@voiceontheleft
I'm quite liberal, but can you honestly not see the failed logic in your post? People can make whatever decisions they want, but when they share the consequences of that decision it's not fair to the people who have nothing to do with it. If I go to the casino with my own money knowing I can lose it, that's my decision. If I go to the casino and lose other people's money, that's bullcrap.
voiceontheleft: I agree. If NO should be abandoned because of hurricanes, a whole lot of California should be abandoned because of earthquakes, wildfires and mudslides. There are not a whole lot of areas in the US that are completely safe from some type of natural disaster. Most of the midwest gets devastating tornadoes every year.
But Alex, your analogy only examines a small portion of the problem, and completely ignores the rest of what i talked about. It's not just "their money" that they risk. We make money of Louisiana. As a port, it is a an essential trade space for us. it does not function without people to run it. Those people need to live close enough to the port to work in it. To have a reasonable level of living, they also need to have services and facilities available to them. And there are also massive tourist dollars made by New Orleans.
We don't rebuild? That affects our ability to trade and the state's ability to profit from those tourist dollars. Plus NOLA is the center of much of our fishing activity, so it's a part of our food platform as a country. But, hey, it's so easy to just abandon it, right--yeah, OK, @!$%# it--we'll cut them loose. Makes total sense (if you've been hit on the head hard enough a few times).
Why do we let people live along earthquake prone areas, or in Homestead, Florida or in tornado alley?
Yes, living below sea level is dangerous, and it's been a problem lately in New Orleans, but it is home to most of the people who do live there.
Fact of the matter is when the risk is put on someone else, people operate in a hazardous manner. In the insurance industry, it's called a "moral hazard". If you could drive your car into a brick wall and collect $100,000, knowing you wouldn't get hurt, a large number of people would do it.
But the moral hazard, of course, is that you could get hurt, so you don't do it.
So when people know that the tax payers will cover much of their costs, they are going to rebuild, be it on a flood plane, or in a city below sea level, or on the edge of a cliff.
If people want to rebuild in hazardous areas, nobody is telling them they can't. We're telling them they need to make sure that THEY can cover their own rebuilding costs by buying insurance. If you can't afford the insurance, don't expect others to pay for it for you.
@voiceontheleft
I'm not arguing that NO has no use or purpose, but by your statements it sounds like you're implying those people are doing the rest of us a favor by living there. Here's the thing, they're getting something out of it. That's where they work, I.E. get paid. So on top of getting paid (I won't argue whether that pay is good or not), we're also expected to bail them out when they face (seasonal) natural disasters?
Unless NO wants to share it's tourism revenue with other cities in the country, how can you argue that the benefits one city gets should be shouldered by others that only get to help in paying for repairs? Mind you, I realize as a nation our economies are all intertwined, but I'm pretty sure the rest of us are losing out based on some of the numbers I've seen in the improvement of levee systems and all around repair work.
Ahh yes, the old argument of brining up california earthquakes to justify living in a hurricane zone.
Last time someone in california died from an earthquake? 2003, and that was 2 people. before that? Northridge, in 1994, and that was 60 people.
so in nearly 20 years 62 people in california have died because of an earthquake.
In the same time frame how many hurricane deaths have there been? 2,381
I think ill stick with my occasional rumbles that wake me up at 4 am.
The US is susceptible to hurricanes as well as tornadoes, floods, wildfires, earthquakes and blizzards among other natural disasters. Which part of the country is safest for NOLA to relocate? Where do you suggest the people should go?
So when the scientists said move NO up river what makes you think they said do away with the port ? did anybody write that? - no they didn't. The ships that go to NO can also go upriver a bit farther. The port would go too. Or do you think only you could think. The scientists who planned and testified couldn't possibly have thought of that ? See this is what I mean. Emotional people get to call the shots because they cry and people want them to shut up so they find a way to work around them andthey get their way. Like dealing with children. This has been going on for so long in so many ways there are no more options for people who can think and do the math to work around the whiners and criers. and the country is broke trying to do things the not-so-smart way. N.O. floods not because the people who pay the bills for the constant rebuilds and would like it to stop are monsters. N.O. Floods because it's below sea level. IT's not the bill payers' fault. And the engineers and scientists said after Katrina - now the city is a total loss - let's move it. But no - the whiners carried the day - and N.O. is still unsafe and requires too many others to pay too much to keep a bunch of musicians and bartenders from crying.
Very simply, the US government shouldn't be in the home rebuilding business.
The federal and local governments usually attempt to build levees and other safeguards but they don't always cover everyone's needs.
People need to be responsible for their own families, pets, homes and personal belongings.
You can forget hurricanes. NO is built on a subsiding river delta. That subsiding cannot be stopped. It will eventually sink into the Gulf of Mexico.
Pompeii was destroyed more than once by still active Mt. Vesuvius. Right across the water from Pompeii, on the foot of Mt. Vesuvius, is Naples, Italy. Population 1.3 million.
Silly humans!
I thought for a second there might be hope for you humans. After all, you do have the intellectual capacity to develop nuclear weapons. Then I realized, you have them pointed at each other.
Oh, I think many people stay in their homes when dangerous weather approaches due to fear of looting, which happens 100% of the time. It isn't because Americans are too dumb to get out, it is because so many other Americans are just plain lowlife thieves. Worse still, doubtless some who stay are the thieves just waiting for others to leave.
I resent the article's implication that everyone who refuses to evacuate when so ordered is crazy, stupid or utterly lacking in resources to enable departure. During Hurricane Ike in 2008 I did not evacuate, choosing to remain in my 100 year old house on high ground which has weathered MANY hurricanes. I was confident it could weather Ike; I made a studied choice to remain, and all turned out well.
WOW-----I'm not sure how it is that we can type here that they have a right to live there but shouldn't have to bear the burden of their decision.
The argument that NO is a huge port town. Move inland and commute to work.
What is the cost difference of rescuing versus evacuating? In my opinion they should be driving buses and trucks and picking up those that can't afford to leave, take them to a shelter above sea level. This gets them out of harms way and doesn't put anyone in harms way that would be tasked with rescuing them. Where do they take them when they are rescued? Take them there before the storm hits.
Yes there are disasters everywhere in this country. You are a fool to live in California, in the Midwest, etc..... Hurricanes have a season where wildfires and earthquakes do not, well, maybe wildfires do. Comparing a hurricane to a tornado is like comparing a wildfire to a lit match. Hurricanes also give plenty of warning where earthquakes and tornadoes do not.
I would be willing to bet that most of the people that stay, no matter how many other reasons they give, stay because they don't believe it is going to be that bad. This is similar to mountain climbers, you put yourself in harms way and then want someone else to get into harms way to come and rescue you when things go wrong.
People need to bear some of the responsibility for the choices they make instead of creating another waste of our tax dollars. Go ahead and pick apart this statement all you want but our government wasn't put in place to take the money from all the hard working Americans and use it to save the people with no common sense. I have a home that is insured, I have a car that is insured so when disaster strikes I am covered. In the mean time I am paying for people I don't even know because they want to live at the bottom of a sewer.
If you want to tell me that this statement is heartless do me one favor first. Got to a store in a down and out neighborhood and watch the person pay for their groceries with their government issued food card, leave the store and load the food into their Cadillac CTS then go to another store to purchase their scratch-off lottery tickets and play those for the next half hour or so. It is more common than you think. Some people don't make a living because they found an easier more convenient "lifestyle" and the bill is being paid by everyone around them. They are the "Purposely Poor".
@Tamara------you don't even match the circumstance. You stated your house is on high ground. All of NO is below sea level. Your odds of beating out the storm were infinitely higher than anyone in NO.
Yeah lets take a basic freedom away. It was no accident that NOLA became a large port. Look at your map and see if you can figure it out.
We have this argument every time there's a major disaster. The point is, the government and taxpayers shouldn't have to foot the bill for rescue or rebuilding. There are people in my state who build $10 million dollar houses on the coast and they always getting battered during hurricanes. If they make that choice they should be the ones paying for it, not us.
As to why people don't evacuate... its lack of education and lack of survival tendencies. Even if I was broke, and I knew a hurricane was coming, I'd FIND A WAY to get myself and my kids away. Period.
@Bob Areddy
100k eh?
I'd be down for that but we all know how it would really go down :/ 3 grand to pay 80 grand worth of hospital bills and your premiums would skyrocket. :P
"Who are these people who don’t leave home even as an angry storm is advancing – and what are they thinking?!"
Well, if ya ask me, I would say they are dumbasses...
Ever notice it's always the same dumbasses hurricane after hurricane...some f*ckin dimwit up on a submerged trailler screaming and hollerin for help...
Most new houses in Florida have roof straps that can withstand 100 to 120 mph winds. Only the eye of a hurricane can normally ever exceeds that wind speed and the eye is only a 15 to 30 mile wide area. Besides flooding and storm surge, as long as it is below a Cat 3 and the eye of the storm is not going to pass over you there is not that much to worry about if your house is well built. I have lost count of the number of hurricanes I have been through and there was only one that I thought maybe I should have evacuated for. That one was pushing 120+mph winds and it was the first time I did not feel "safe" in a hurricane.
Protip: Stay inside so that you do not get hit by flying objects or come in contact with any downed power lines.
And now that the article explains why they don't or can't leave, maybe there could be an article about why the heck we(taxpayers) should keep rebuilding these peoples homes?...If they can't or don't want to leave so be it, but don't ask me more than once to help you rebuild their house....give each one an inner tube and let them paddle their own asses out of there...
Littlechanges,
You are correct, looters are less than garbage. However, if people don't evacuate because they are afraid of looters, they have their priorities kind of messed up. No things are more valuable than someone's life.
I am happy to contribute to rebuilding the home of someone who has lost theirs to natural disaster! I'm floored by the whining about how expensive it is to rebuild. How do you know who's paying for what? Maybe State Farm and Allstate are rebuilding? Would it change your mind if you didn't perceive it as YOUR money? Mighty neighborly of you! NOT!
Almost 90% of humanity lives on a coast of some kind..
All of you making the argument about "my money" the same could be said about YOU hoggin up the air..
Twilight Zone Original Series: Monsters Are Due On Maple Street
Go look in the mirror.....
Now, flame me because you pukes have nothin..
My wife and I "hunkered down and prayed" all would be right on several hurricanes---we are not stupid she and I both eventually earned masters degrees her in Library science and me in Computer Education with additional graduate hours in math.
The weather guys issued warnings well in advance, but after you "leave" several times and the blow never materializes and you are out several hundreds of dollars(1965 dollars) in lost wages, gasoline and motels for each "false alarm" you begin to not believe the warnings or are willing to take a chance to save months of wages etc.
I don't know but you would think..... getting flooded twice in 7 yrs...... gee maybe it's time to move into higher ground instead of rebuilding? I would hate to replace everything over and over again.
Good for you United We Stand!
I don't wish to spend my money or time helping people that don't try to help themselves.
Journal was right - a lot of folks won't leave their pets, family members, close friends, etc. But, there is also another reason some may have - it's darned exciting to stay through a hurricane -- as long as you survive it.
Good point. In a few years NYC is going to be close to sea level. So, all people in New York city better think about moving out now. Come on get going, it's for you best interests and safety. It's just a city like any other place, just a little bigger. Thinking of that London is almost at sea level to. Seems like around 70 - 80% of people on this planet has located around areas that are effected by ocean levels. Come on guys, what are we waiting for move on.
rainlady2,
I can certainly see your point. I've always felt that people needing that kind of excitement must have a gene that I wasn't born with but I have no problem with them doing what they want to do. The deal is, they should be responsible for whatever consequences come their way.
The truth is a mix of most of what a lot of you have already mentioned, but it's far from the whole story. Yes, some of it is economic. You are expected to abandon everything you own, you must look for a hotel or motel room that may or may not be available, much less available at a price you can afford and I can assure you that there will be none at anything like an economy rate, regardless of how nasty and tacky they are. You can't take your pets, and that is a huge issue for almost all pet owners. If it isn't an issue for you, perhaps you might consider that you are more appropriate for a chia pet than a dog, cat, parrot, or anything else that breathes.
And then there are the shelters, if you cannot afford a hotel. The shelters are crowded, dirty, and in many cases as dangerous if not more dangerous than riding out the storm. Violence, theft, and rape are more common than you would believe in the shelters, and there is little if any law enforcement because they are occupied elsewhere. If you, or anyone in your party has a disability or is elderly or otherwise vulnerable, multiply the risk of being victimized by at least ten. Factor in that there will most likely be no one who will intervene if you are victimized, and that storm looks better by the minute. Also,don't assume that because you have money you will never see the inside of a shelter, because if you happen to be behind the guy who gets the last room, it won't matter how much money you have because they cannot rent you what they do not have. If you appear to be affluent and are forced to go to a shelter, your very affluence becomes a liability, because it tempts those I mentioned earlier. If you are going to beat the crap out of someone and take what they have, are you going to choose someone wearing ragged clothes and carrying their few possessions in a trash bag or the guy with the matched luggage from the back of that Lexus.
Oh, and that Lexus? If it lasts for a half hour parked outside an evacuation shelter it's going to be because you hot wired it to electricity to prevent someone from stealing it, and even then the second person who decided they like your ride and sees the dead guy next to it, still hanging on because the tetany from the electric current won't allow his hand to relax enough to let go of it is going to look around, kick that hot wire away, and grab and go.
How's evacuating looking to you now, peeps? And we haven't even mentioned that, in all probability, if your house is worth the effort to kick the door in it will very probably be completely trashed by the time you get home, even if it is only a couple of days, and the damage won't be from the storm.
Doesn't all of this make you want to toss three changes of clothes into your car and take off for parts unknown? Or are you perhaps thinking exactly what a lot of folks think, which is that A) most of the time the weather folks are wrong and B) even if they're right, leaving could well be more dangerous than staying.
It's not that people are stubborn or complacent, or at least not always.It's simply that staying may be the least bad choice of all the bad choices.
All of you who are asking why we "keep rebuilding houses for these people": the same people don't get flooded every year, so we aren't rebuilding houses over and over for them. You see a flood and you automatically assume it's the same people, but it's not if you read the articles closely. Also, ALL of New Orleans did not flood after Katrina. The French Quarter and some of the more prosperous areas did not flood. Furthermore, I don't know about Louisiana, but in FL we are mandated by law to carry property insurance-flood insurance also if we live in a flood plain. Granted, the federal government would likely have to give some assistance; but people would be mandated to have flood insurance if they were in a flood-prone area-at least in FL. Therefore, even though I live in a high-risk area, none of YOU personally would be rebuilding MY house if it were destroyed. (I'm not even required to have flood insurance but I have it anyway because you never know how much rain a hurricane will dump, and the drains can get clogged. I've seen over 20" in a single storm.) I pay a fortune for my insurance, and it's not passed on to the rest you guys in your premiums-that's why it's so hard for us to get insurance here and why so many companies have withdrawn from the state. So, could you chill a bit on the "Why do they even live there?" stuff re people who live in hurricane areas, etc.? We pay for it in property insurance. (And for some of us, it's where our jobs and our support systems are. We were out of work for a year before getting this job. Besides, FL has been our home for decades.)
Re evacuating: we evacuated for Hurricane Andrew in 1992; and it was an absolute nightmare. There are not that many major roads going north, and they were completely clogged. We took the turnpike, thinking it might be better than I 95. Traffic was stop and go at best with the storm only hours away. Forget stopping at a rest stop because cars were pulled over on the side of the turnpike itself all around the rest stop with people using the bushes or even open car doors around themselves for privacy-some people were desperate enough not to care about privacy at all and just stood on the side of the road. You had to hope you brought food and water with you because you certainly were not going to be able to buy anything with those crowds (fortunately we had both). We had a young baby and a small dog, and somewhere north of Orlando we stopped asking if the hotels accepted animals because there was no place with a room-we actually had to go to Tallahassee, which was miles and miles out of the way west on I 10! We got there at 3 am and carried the dog in like a football because we didn't know if they allowed pets or not-we didn't care, we had to have a room. The baby had not slept at all and was crying, the dog was barking, we were trying to shush them... We had no idea if the storm had hit or where. The next morning we had to get up and turn on the news to see what happened with the storm, if it had hit our area or not, because you have to leave before you know exactly where it will hit. If we hadn't been hit, we would have a full day's drive back so that we could return to work the following day. We would only miss work for a Hurricane Warning.
According to CNN early that morning, the only damage was a tree down in Boca Raton and a little damage on Miami Beach-so we began the long drive back. As we travelled we began to hear rumors of other people going south saying they couldn't get their phones to ring or they couldn't contact their neighbors. It was eerie. We were able to get our neighbors, who said that the power had not even gone out; and we felt kind of foolish for leaving. We didn't know about Homestead and all that damage from Andrew until we actually got home and spoke to our families then turned on CNN again. If Andrew had turned north, as expected, we might have gotten the bad side of the eye where I lived at the time; and I might not have had a house to return to. So, evacuation is a real pain. But I think it's probably better than sitting in your bathtub while your house falls apart around you or having to run from house to house as one after the other falls apart like people reported they did during Andrew. It also has to be better than racing rising water to the second floor of your house and then to the attic and eventually having to cut a hole in your roof and then wait to be rescued while corpses float by like people did after Katrina. Surely if people knew that was going to happen they would have moved heaven and earth to get out of there, even if the government didn't step up. Of course, hindsight is always 20/20.
Regarding retired RN's comment about shelters, I saw all those people going into the Superdome prior to Katrina with no water, no food, no diapers, no nothing; and I knew there was going to be big trouble. In FL they ALWAYS tell us to bring at least 3 days worth of food, water, medicine, formula for babies, diapers, blankets, etc when going to a shelter. I just kept wondering what on earth they were going to do with all those people when the lights went out and there was no food, no water, no flashlights, no nothing and it got hot and crowded...Did they really expect a crowd that size just to sit quietly in the DARK with a hurricane going on outside? I'm nobody special, but even I could see that they were asking for problems! (Not that I wasn't horribly grieved when it happened...and it was far worse than I ever imagined.)
Maybe it's too easy for all of us to judge when we aren't in someone else's shoes. I saw from the article that it's not always so easy for people to evacuate-they don't have the means or the support or even a place to go. Those of us with more mobility sometimes have a hard time understanding, much like my friends with a lot more money than I have sometimes don't get it that I can't always do what they can at the drop of a hat. It's okay, and I don't resent them for it-they just have a hard time understanding that I can't just hop on a jet anytime.
Well, it's 2 main reasons -- one is that people love all their "stuff" so much that they would risk their lives to protect it. The second reason is that people love their pets and don't want to leave them, so they ignore common sense and stay. I can see staying to protect a family member, child, etc. but a pet ? Pet's do not have a conscience, a soul, or any "love" other than instinct -- they don't reason, have a conversation, or know right from wrong -- really !
My pets have more soul than many people I know and I would never,ever leave them behind to fend for themselves!
Chargernut, there is a growing body of scientific research that indicates that animals are capable of many things of which we thought they were NOT capable, including reasoning. And there are many ways of "talking" besides using words. But if really doesn't matter to me why they do what they co. My dogs/cats have rushed to my rescue when I needed it, patted tears from my face w/their paws, and refused to leave my side when I was sick. I'd rather die than leave them in the path of a storm.
Chargernut, I'm assuming you must have never had pets. If you have had them, then i feel sorry for the poor animals if that is your attitude toward them. I would rather drown with my dog than think that I left him behind to die alone.
I feel sorry for you that you have never, apparently, had or acknowledged the enriching experience of having a pet in your life.
What a load of psycho-babble. (As I give a raspberry). Those who would stay are the hard core, self sufficients, who want or need nothing from the gubment, right up to the time they are being lifted off their roofs by the Coasties. Let em stay, but send em a bill for the rescue services.
@Chargernut69
I'm guessing you're a troll, but I know you're not omnipotent. You can't say for certain how the world works or what animals/people/plants are capable of. The failed rationale and frankly, stupidity, of your post is amusing. On one hand, you claim humans have a soul (something that may not exist), yet on the other you claims animal don't (which they CAN, if it DOES exist). So stupid.
A pet is a living being who is entrusted to your care. Pets have distinct personalities, and obviously have feelings. They experience joy, fear, loneliness, boredom, anticipation, pride, embarrassment and more. They understand words and our body language. They are in tuned to the people they live with and know their schedules. If you ever had a dog or cat, and attempted any sort of relationship with it, you'd know that. They are not human, but they are family. It would be horrifying to have to leave a beloved pet behind. I couldn't do it.
I am going to semi-agree with one thing that Chargernut says, and that is that animals are not the same as people - and I think sacrificing ones own life for an animal is extreme.
That being said, he could not be more wrong about any of his assertions regarding pets. My wife is the true animal lover, although I have experienced the capacity of many animals to give love and certainly they have a soul. Living in a flood zone area in Virginia we have experienced water in our home on 3 occasions since moving here in 2003 (Hurricanes Isabel, & Irene, and Noreaster in 2009). Not once have we evacuated our home, although I would if I felt our lives were truly in danger. We do our best to prepare and then move to the 2nd floor with our pets and ride it out.
We do not ask for handouts or support to rebuild our home, other than the claims to insurance company that we have paid for. If it came down to having to leave some animal behind, I don't think my wife could do it - and therefore that means I am staying too. My wife volunteers with Virginia Wildlife Rescue and currently is caring for several baby squirrels, some bunnies, and 5 racoons that will be cared for until they are ready to be released. My wife has more compassion for animals than some who have commented do for people - I feel sorry for them that they can't experience the joys of giving selflessly.
Most shelters/hotels do not welcome pets. My first instinct would be pack up what you can and that includes the pets and head north AHEAD of the storm. I would NEVER leave my pets behind ANYWHERE in harms way. EVER.
My Dad and step mom adopted a dog (super awesome and amazing forever puppy) from the Katrina fiasco. He is very intelligent and is STILL affected to this day whenever a storm starts a bruin. He literally starts getting pushy 30-40mins before anyone knows a thunder/rain cloud gets over head. You can not say that animals don't understand or know whats going on. They are very in tune to their surroundings and I can't believe someone just left this poor dog to his own devises. This dog is going on 8 years old and is still nothing but a lover who goes out of his way to make certain that you know he is there and willing to play with you whenever...even if that means you tucker him out till he can't stand anymore.
Chargenut69, i'm thinking you have never experienced the unconditional love of an animal, or you would certainly have not made the comment that they do not have souls. They have souls. They think. They love. If they are a domesticated pet, they rely on their people to care for them. I know there are issues if every shelter would allow pets, but there need to be more that do. For many these furkids are their only companions and to leave them behind to uncertainty is unthinkable. I have a collapsable crate for my dog just in case I ever need to leave home quickly. I would sleep in my car with him if we could reach a safe place and we couldn't be admitted together. I'm lucky - I have a car and a crate - what about those that don't? In the face of losing everything they have - their homes, businesses, cars, boats, livelihoods - we can't ask them to lose their pets as well. Humans are supposed to be compassionate and this is a very simple issue for us to solve.
Spoken like one who has never had a pet. The more time you spend with them the more you realize there is somebody home in there. Dogs use a lot of body language and when I ask my dog " what do you want" he will nod his head in the direction he wants me to go until we get to his food dish,toy or whatever. He will bark at me to come out and play, evem though he once did it for the treats, now it's because he wants to play but mostly he wants me to be out there with him. I know on television thay are portrayed as a luxury that you feed and otherwise dismiss but that is not the case. He warns me of intruders and sometimes risks his life to keep them at bay, so yes I would risk my life for him.
Don't forget that since the Katrina flood, everyone there has heard the story about the people with dogs that went to the designated shelter. When the shelter was in danger of flooding, the people were taken out but the dogs were tied up and left. Graffiti on the walls indicates that some folks knew what was coming next. All the dogs were susequently shot to death. So if someone in authority says " those of you with pets , go over there " do you think they are going to do that? I wouldn't.
I'd save my pets before saving my neighbor. But then, he's such a jerk that I'd also save his pets before I'd saved him.
I am going out on a limb and say that Chargenut does not have any pets or at least any that like him
My dog is more excited to see me when I get home from work than my wife is. So the next hurricane I evacuate I will bring him and leave the wife
Littlechanges - HAHAHAHA - that totally cracked me up. Me, too! And danimyl you are funny, too. Thanks. I needed a laugh today.
"I would rather drown with my dog than think that I left him behind to die alone"
Only if humans had this attitude towards other humans.
I sure hope you don't have any pets. They have feelings and are more sincere in their love then any thing you apparently can perceive. You better stick to your life alone, it is better your lack of empathy for any thing other then yourself, to punish the lives of any animal that has the same right to live as yourself.
There's a whole nother group of 'stayers' y'all missed. Those who've rode out the storms since they were kids and were fine each time, just needed to get some bottled water, dry ice and propane for the camping grill. Heck, I stayed through one storm and then drove over to a friends house after the eye passed and dealt with the power outage in their hot tub. They had a generator. Was one of the best hurricane parties ever. I went body surfing in the Bay during another storm and boogy boarding through the parking lot of our condo complex through another one.
Wait, maybe I am crazy... never needed rescue though.
Yet
I want to come party with you, Athyna. Your story sounds crazy but also lots of fun. It's all in the attitude. We all have to die eventually so might as well be having a good time.
By the time it is known where the storm will hit exactly the highways are too crowded to go anywhere, all the motel rooms are booked for a 1,000 mile radius, if you do leave the highways will be closed where you cannot return, your home WILL be looted, stopping for gas during an evacuation is a joke with 10 milion other people doing the same thing, many end up enduring the storm stuck on the interstate in bumper to bumper traffic. In most cases you are much better off staying at home. These articles are always written by people who do not live in a hurricane area, have never experienced a hurricane and have no earthly idea what they are writing about.
That's why you prepare when the even before the watch goes up by filling your tanks, plotting your route making motel reservations. Most motels will let you cancel any where from 24 to 72 hours in advance by then you have a pretty good idea where the storm his heading. And yes I also live in a hurricane prone area
I remember right after Katrina that Texas tried to evacuate for hurricane Rita. Texas thought they had learned the lessons of Katrina and had plenty of preparations in place. But even through the evac was planned and carried out in stages, the roads were overwhelmed. People ran out of gas, food, water. Nursing home evacuees died in a bus fire. Somewhere between 90-118 people died trying to evacuate. Some died from the heat, sitting in cars, sitting on the road. It was a nightmare. The hurricane itself was directly responsible for 7 US deaths.
So all those simple minded people who think things can be solved by simply following evac orders are clearly not students of recent history. Rita taught us that you can't simply evac millions of people out of harms way in the space of a few days. In some cases evacs put them in harms way.
And people who think you can simply move a city are delusional. Who would pay for it in a time when budgets are being cut and TEA's kick at any mention of raising taxes? It would be a lot cheaper to build better sea walls and pumping systems. But again how do you pay for it with TEA's thinking the world will end if government even thinks about funding such projects.
So why do people stay? Maybe they don't want to die in traffic. Why not move the city? Because America has become a land of whiners when it comes to doing anything that would take a dollar out of their over-stuffed pocket book.
If you can swim, have a hatch in your roof and a boat tied to your eaves.
SprDg - I imagine it would be a good deal cheaper to move an entire city than it would be to rebuild it every 5-10 years. Move it once, it's done. Might be a bit expensive, but how much money has been spent in the last 100 years rebuilding NOLA? I guarantee you, relocating is more economical. Keep it where it is and we dump another few 10s of billions of dollars into it in a couple years. NOLA quite simply WILL be hit by another hurricane. It's a fact. The only effective way to keep the city there would be to completely cover it with a huge water tight dome. And even then, it's a receding delta. It will eventually just sink into, or rather be covered by, the gulf. Then what? After we spend another century and trillions of dollars rebuilding it twice a decade, we will still end up having to relocate everyone and everything there as the ocean comes through the front door. Why not get it done now when we're only ridiculously, and not ludicrously in debt?
As an addendum: people are concerned about the tourism aspect of the city. Well, if you moved it inland to any place that isn't below sea level and let the old NOLA become the part of the ocean it should be, you get a bonus. A new coral reef to replace the losses in the Atlantic caused by the vaunted fishing fleets. Can you imagine the tourist trap that would be? "Come see The New Orleans Reef!" LA benefits because New Orleans it is still there, 50 miles upriver so you don't lose Mardi Gras. And there's a new source of taxation. Catch a boat from NNOLA (New New Orleans) to the Reef and do some free diving/snorkeling/scuba in the nice warm waters of the gulf. At the end of the day, you check into what amounts to one of many floating hotels, anchored yet totally mobile if need be, spread around the rim of the NO bowl. Moving NOLA could be the best thing LA ever did.
To all of you that think New Orleans should move somewhere else should consider the following:
1.) There were 40 YEARS between Hurricane Betsy in 1965 and Katrina in 2005. But whole towns are severely damaged or even destroyed in Tornado Alley EVERY YEAR. And it can flood anywhere, every year.
2.) Much of New Orleans is ABOVE sea level.
3.) Metropolitan New Orleans had a greater proportion of homeowners with flood insurance even before Katrina, that any other area of the country.
4.) Katrina only brushed New Orleans and actually made a direct hit on the Mississippi Gulf Coast where its surge wiped away many small towns. People 20+ miles inland and 20+ feet above flood level, lost their homes in the surge that no one thought could reach that far or that high. No one complains about those communities rebuilding with NO protection from the open sea.
5.) The devastating flooding of New Orleans in 2005 came about because the US Army Corps of Engineers ignored their own written instructions for building flood levees, and the structures fell apart long before they reached their maximum load. From the day the first test bore was drilled for the first flood levee, the Corps took dangerous shortcuts, omitted critical procedures and generally screwed up, even after warnings by their own contractors.
6.) The area north of New Orleans is already POPULATED. In any event, Hurricane Rita, coming a few weeks after Katrina, reached Alexandria, LA, 250 miles inland and did considerable damage. Other hurricanes have hit the Gulf Coast and caused severe damage clear to Virginia. Just where is this safe new New Orleans supposed to be located?
It's not "storm psychology" it's "financial psychology"... most of the people that live in New Orleans live paycheck to paycheck - they don't have another mansion in the Caymans that they can just fly to on their private jet... Their house and their belongings are all they have and they will always stay to try and protect what little they have...
I know paycheck to paycheck people who take vacations every year. Didney, Vegas, rent a beach house. They someone else providing some of their necessities. They are able to make some coices when they want to. Cell phone and cable TV bills top hundreds per month. NO reason they can't keep a few hundred in gas money and get out if a #2 or higher is bearing down on em.
@ I read,
even when the Mayor says not to evacuate??? Also, it's funny that you consider cellphones and cable TV to be luxuries- when it usually costs more money to get an actual land line phone, and many TV stations are no longer broadcasting analog signals - necessitating the use of cable TV to viewers
NFL network, premium movie channels etc is how you run a cable TV bill into the hundreds. So yes, I think those are luxuries when the subject was poor people who are so poor they don't have a fgew hundred in gas money to get out of a hurricane with. Your reaction gives me the idea you may be one of those people.
You know read, I live paycheck to paycheck, but I travel every summer. Usually to a summer job, but I take my sweet time getting out there. The reason I can afford my mini vacations is because even though I live paycheck to paycheck, I set aside a little bit of money every month so that when summer rolls around, I'm able to do that.
Not to mention that not everyone has family out of state that can take you. If all of your family is in the bulls eye, you are more likely to stay. One man got his wife and kids out of Dodge but stayed to watch over his parents and grandparents. The older you are the harder it is to leave.
@ I read,
You do know that there is a thing called "basic cable", right??? It doesn't have any premium channels, only the basic cable channels....
Included in my hurricane preparedness kit I started with a few hundred dollars in it every year I do not use it I just add to it the next year. I ended up using it last year for Isabelle and stayed at a nice hotel on high ground. This year I started over and put in enough money to at least stay at a 2nd rate roach hotel and hopefully will not have to use it. It is tough sometimes to put away money like that but it takes making sacrifices to ensure my families safety
But they replaced it with digital broadcasting. You can easily pick up a digital antenna for 20 bucks and watch it on any tv for free. So yeah....... cable tv are luxuries.
Yes Mandy: and since you are acting responsibly your situation doesn't fit the scenario I described of "poor" people who can't evacuate because they don't have money but somehow spend hundreds a month on Cell and TV and entertainments. I didn't mention drugs and alcohol at first, but I'm sure there are some of those too ! SO thank you . You would be doing it right. You are not the problem.
Why do Turkeys look up during a rainstorm and drown? We will never know for sure but natural selection is at work.
Do turkeys really do that?
In Turkey..because it rarely rains????
Yes they do, not real smart when it rains.
Willie- It's probably only the kind that post comments about how stupid others are.
Well, true or false I have never heard that before. How bizarre. I'll have to write the Duck Dynasty crowd and ask them. They would know about wild turkeys. Right before they blast them.
My Mom lived on a farm when she was a kid and YES the turkeys did drown. We cant verify if they were looking up but nothing else drowned in that storm! And it didnt even flood.
Stupid, stupid birds!!
Damn, thanks Miss Nessa. Bunch of google brain bookworms that can only text their names. It's sad when someone says the computer said so and they all follow mindlessly. Firsthand experience rules but we have to teach these young ones that the box is not always right. Good night!
I raise free range turkeys. They all seem to make it through the rain without a problem. It is true though that the large breasted white lump that is raised in confinement buildings might be that stupid, but real turkeys are some of the more intelligent birds you can get. They are a lot of fun, as they will follow you and study you if you take the time to sit down with them, smarter then a chicken.
Domesticated, as in that huge mound of meat on your holiday table, turkeys are not going to look up in the rain and drown because they live their entire lives in a cage and never feel a raindrop.
"Better question is why do we keep rebuilding homes for people who insist on living by the coast below sea level??"
WE keep rebuilding homes for people? Assume you are saying why is there hurricane disaster assistance as I'm not aware of people getting these free rebuilt homes you're referring to. Simple, same reason we do it for people who "insist" on living where there are chances for blizzards, tornadoes, earthquakes, flooding, forest fires, etc. In other words pretty much anywhere.
As for the article itself, hurricanes in general are usually erratic until right before landfall so most people can't afford to just pick up and leave on 24 hours notice without being absolutely sure they are in imminent danger. And even then, resulting damage is not something that can easily be predicted with these small storms so most people choose to risk it unless they either have plenty of resources or the storm is CAT 4/5 which is a MUCH different storm than a CAT 1/2. Honestly, once you've been through a few of these things, until the storm is minimum CAT 3 the term "risk" is a bit overblown for the vast majority of the people. More like a really long summer storm where some stuff gets blown over, some trees and limbs down, maybe electric out for a day or two but no reason to think your life is in danger.
When does the Govt ever pay to rebuild homes after a blizzard? Never and the flooded out cities in ND never got a dime to rebuild their homes from the flood of 2011. They had FEMA trailers brought in for them and that was it! No money for rebuilding. They had to do fundraisers, voted in national contests to raise money and do the work themselves when they couldn't afford to hire anyone to do it for them. A year later and do you hear them raising a ruckus on national tv and news outlets? No! Many of them still aren't in their homes and are losing the FEMA trailers after the 1 yr they were allowed in them, but they just keep trucking on. Strangers are taking people in and helping each other rebuild their homes. Maybe it isnt a matter of who is paying for who but a matter of who's willing to do the work instead of just sitting around expecting someone else to d it for them.
I still can't bring myself to feel sorry for those who have the resources to evacuate and choose not to.
During a hurricane last year I stayed in the evacuation zone because I wanted to experience it firsthand.
You should have died.
i did the same last year. I'm new to NC from up north and wanted to experience it. Found out the news hypes hurricane warnings down here like they do blizzard storm warnings up north. For over a week, they said a cat 5 was going to hit us head on and to evacuate. I'm stubborn and curious. Ended up only a 1 or 2. Just some debris to clean up in the yard and no power for 1/2 day. Spoke with folks who did leave and the traffic jams were worse than riding it out. As for animals, i certainly wouldn't leave them behind. If I did decide to bail, I'd throw them in the truck with the wife and kid.
Well, Alan????? Seriously, how did that work out for you. Would you do it again?
because it's exciting and a damn good excuse for a "hurricane party".....I mean, you can't have a hurricane party without a hurricane. When I was on Guam we had "typhoon parties". Everyone went to the liquor store and loaded up (no pun intended) and hunkered down for a day or two. We had such great activities as the "coconut toss"... throw it straight up here and see how far it lands....there, skiing behind motorcycles with heel -less shoes by holding on to the luggage racks and so on. Problem is, sometimes the fun turns ugly and you get drowned or get a piece of shrapnel through you. If you don't want to leave and have several days notice then you pretty much have to accept whatever happens.
They stay because they're masochists
I would have to think, not ever being in this situation, that it's a calculated risk. If you leave, you face a huge traffic jam, hours to wait to get gas, or the possibility of running out of gas on the clogged highway, finding no vacant hotel rooms. And the very real risk that your house is being looted while you're away.
I don't know if it's worse to find yourself stranded on your own rooftop or stranded in a gigantic traffic jam on a highway.
My family chose not to evacuate from Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and we live right in the middle of Homestead. We're also white, and upper middle-class. The reason we chose to stay is that we're farmers; our entire life and livelihood was in South Florida, and we knew that if we left, it would take weeks to get back to start the clean-up. In fact, it took my uncles over a week to be able to get to us from West Florida. After the storm, the government stepped in and helped to get the business back on track. And my parents have repaid that money 10-fold in taxes in the years since -- all because we got a helping hand when we needed it. Thank goodness that FEMA helped us out; without them, who knows whether we would be able otherwise. Please stop judging people; if such a disaster befell you, I would want you to receive help as well. Don't like the government helping those in need? Move to Pakistan -- where it's every man for himself.
Good for you and your insight is appreciated as well as thoughtful. Very glad all worked out well for you and yours.
Or if you like government you could move to Soviet Russia. There should be balance to everything. FEMA is not the end all answer to emergency management.
I have known lots of people, including family, that have ridden out hurricanes. Camille almost got some of them and the stories are pretty frightening yet I wonder what it would be like, too. However not on my bucket list.
Hurricane Andrew released a poop load of pythons and other reptiles in the swamps. That was one bad a$$ hurricane. I do not think I would enjoy riding out one like her. Incredible.
Maybe the "stayers" could have a boat rack on their roofs and at least be able to save themselves, their pets and help the old gal next door?
Well... there were people being rescued by neighbors that did stay behind. It's a calculated risk. Not everyone has the same circumstances. Which is why " Do what I do " and " be like me " do not apply
Hmmm...article seems to be highlighting about the same sort of ignorance underlying the support for voter ID laws...
Anyway, I don't leave because, as everyone knows, THE BEST PARTIES ARE HURRICANE PARTIES!!! I mean, what better driver for a particularly good party than the potentiality of death...just be sure to be in a concrete structure more than 10 feet above sea level.
Many of these reasons seem legit. Since the local Governments know that people are going to stay no matter what, maybe they should start "Shelter in Place" programs that let people know what they need to survive most natural disasters & that the local rescue agencies will only be available to help them when it's safe for the rescuers because otherwise they're on their own.
I think that was the general idea behind staying at the superdome after Katrina...We all saw how well that worked.
The fact is, as someone above noted...hurricanes, while you KNOW there's one there, there is absolutely NO way to tell where they are going to land, and in which direction they will head after that. Not everyone can take a "vacation" to go somewhere else IN CASE the storm passes over their homes.
Yes, genafan201. They also should have a hatch in their roof and a boat full of food and water) tied to the eaves so that they can float somewhere else when their house is covered with water.
Many lack the resources, means and/or finances to leave their homes for any length of time. Many stay to protect their belongings from the looters as what happened in the residue of Katrina's path seven years ago when the police and LEA broke and ran.
i have this to say about the title of this article. common sense tells me that people stay behind because they do not have the funds to go anywhere. simple isin't it?
Social psychologists refer to it as the Fundamental Attribution Error. If you make a mistake in a difficult situation, you're likely to blame external factors (e.g., not enough information). However, when people observe victims their prone to blame the victim for their misfortune (e.g., wasn't paying attention). I would imagine many people stay behind because their power went out (700,000 people with out power) and they missed the information.
Similar examples of people making an incorrect inference due to the Fundamental Attribution Error: Libertarians often argue poor people deserve to be poor.
The reverse is true in regards to giving credit for success. We are willing to give people personal credit when they are successful even when perhaps they don't deserve the credit. That is, many people believe rich people deserve to be rich when statistics show most inherited their money. Many others had superior opportunities (e.g., better education) that helped them achieve success. Still others did things to become wealthy that are unethical or at the very least not impressive. In contrast, lots of people without money are very impressive. For example, people who risk their lives everyday to help others or those who get an education and work to help others not just themselves.
Successful people usually are smarter and make fewer mistakes - at least in the big areas of life and rarely repeat their mistakes. They've earned the right to be full participants in society, respected for what they are and do, which means taking care of family, co-workers and even total strangers. Because it is the right thing to do. They have shown in numerous ways that they can be trusted with responsibilities of life and death, as well as possess the stamina and character to make an effort to improve the future. Whereas, others who do none of that and don't care about any of that, generally end up miserable or in prison and almost always blaming the successful folks who worked for what they have. They haven't made even the least effort or put in the time to be better or do for anyone but themselves. It also helps to recognize when young that an education is the key that unlocks most doors and that making an effort there, too, is essential. Too many kids are not taught self-responsibility and then eschew it when older because it is too much effort, easier to expect others to do everything for you or create chaos in response to not getting one's way. Too bad the wrong people keep having so many kids like the latter. That's what screws up the world. And it doesn't take long, just 20 or 30 years for the United States.
littlechanges --hogwash!
It's not about psychology, it's about money. Most people who stay behind either can't afford to evacuate and stay in a hotel (with inflated rates), or they worry about looting, knowing that authorities not be able to do much of anything to protect their personal property. There is no incentive for people NOT to build and live in chronic flood zones, because they know evertime their homes get destroyed, FEMA and their insurance companies will give them $$$ to re-build over and over again everytime a flood event occurs. This loophole from these flawed government flood programs has cost responsible tax payers billions of dollars over the last several decades.
But if they will not take my pets then I wouldn't go.
What a lot of people don't understand is that, before Katrina many people in New Orleans had no private transportation and used public transportation all their lives.
Here in Louisiana, the Red Cross will no longer open any shelter below I-12, which means a minimum 40 mile trip from New Orleans to the closest shelter. Schools have been found to be totally inappropriate for those who need more than just a roof over their heads. (Try getting a wheelchair up to the second floor, or recharge an oxygen machine, when there is no electricity.) You people who don't know the facts apparently expected an 85-year-old, wheelchair-bound Katrina evacuee, to start wheeling himself to safety in May, before the first hurricane formed, "just in case."
One thing that has changed in New Orleans, is that there is now transportation for those who have no other way to evacuate. You can even bring a pet, which remains a problem for multiple-pet families. The other major problem is how to get to one of the few pick-up places scattered around the city.
We can now look back on our Katrina experience with FEMA and other agencies as a learning experience for them. They seem to be much more on the ball now.
Wrong question. Why does the government allow people to build homes on a flood plain, even one below sea level? Why do the people build in a flood plain. The Gulf Coast gets hit hard every few years; that's a fact! Only an irrational person would repeat the building of a house that was destroyed by an event that is certain to occur again.
It is fine if you want to stay during a mandatory evacuation. What is not right is expecting people to save you after the fact. Why should other people risk their lives because of your choice?
I know a couple reasons - you don't know if 'it is going to be bad or not' . Once you leave, you cannot return until the police give permission. I know someone in TX affected by past hurricanes. It's a crap shoot for every hurricane. If you leave, and your area is fine, you may not be able to return for a week or more until all areas are 'safe'. Its a guess as to which is the 'least bad choice'. You cannot tell an officer 'my area is safe'. All can return or no one returns. It could be hundreds of square miles that are off limits once you have left. It's not an easy choice.
Spot on - so many people don't understand that hindsight makes it seem like such an easy choice but hurricanes and the damage they cause are so difficult to predict. My parents in Pensacola thought it was going to be a direct hit two days before they realized it wouldn't really even affect them.
Even once you have that 24 hrs notice, will it really be bad in your immediate area (CAT 3 and below)? This one just happened to practically stall and dump a ton of rain on certain areas. The same area that had no flooding during Katrina is now completely flooded. The same areas that were destroyed 7 years ago are untouched and never lost electric.
And i
Thanks for alerting me to the other side of the coin. I will think a bit more before I criticize people in these situations.
Thank You if you saw my post I cannot now find??
Give me a break. Yes, I'm white, but I live in a 1968 mobile home after the housing collapse and definitely fall into the poor category. I don't care if it's a strong TS (or the Columbus day storm last year), we leave. It isn't about having a lot or too little and wanting to protect it. When you live in a hurricane prone area, you know what is most important. In fact, just ask yourself this even if you live in Nebraska...I'm given 3 days head start knowing I may lose everything, what do I take and where do I go? Your list will be surprisingly short. Family, pets, important documents and computers, photographs and a few family heirlooms or momentos. If you have a car, that comes to. If you don't have a mode of transportation, the city/county/parrish will provide one. In fact after Katrina, they allow pets on the buses, too. Don't have a place to go? Go to a shelter. Worried about your pets? They have pet shelters set up. Stop using flimsy excuses for why you won't leave. My dad was a cop when I was little and he had to stay out here on the barrier island during a cat4 because of morons who wouldn't leave and looters. If you want to stay and risk your own life, fine, but don't you DARE call for help afterwards and put someone else's loved one at risk because you refused to leave. During the wildfires this summer, people had only minutes to leave and they GOT OUT. You don't need to watch a natural disaster unfolding to know it could happen. In a hurricane area, we are lucky with having a disaster that lets us know it's coming. There is a tropical depression in the open Atlantic I've got my eyes on now, and so does everyone in a hurricane prone area with two brain cells rubbing together.
Lighten up Psycho, you are being a huge Debbie Downer
Nice try Psycho...it's not like we have elderly or infirm here in Florida. I'll wait for that to sink in while reminding you it is not a cowardly act to evacuate when asked to do so. Also, I do help evacuate my neighbors. As far as the elderly and infirm that you are speaking of, they are evacuated one day earlier than those under mandatory evacuations many with the assistance of ambulances. It's hardly the Ann Ryand-esque scenario you paint. As I've mentioned, I am one of those poor people you are so worried about and I can tell you if I didn't have family nearby, I can call the local police station (or walk there if I can't afford it) and tell them I need assistance in evacuating. They are more than happy to help. People who stay during a hurricane do so because they choose to, not because a gun is being held to their heads advising them they can't leave. It's not a tornado, it's a hurricane and there is more than enough time to leave, walking, if necessary.