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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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Lack of scientific education is a great deal of the problem, and that is due to poor elementary school education, and upwards. It's not likely that the wind itself will kill you, it is the tree branch that is carried by the wind that hits you that will kill you. It's somewhat likely that your car will withstand some water. It's the log which is floating in the water that weighs a few tons, moving along at 10 feet per second, that hits your car, that will crush your car. It's the rush of water into the storm sewers that compresses the air in the storm sewers, and it's this air pressure that pops the man hole covers, holes which you can fall into wading flooded streets. Are the people staying aware of the trees in their neighborhoods likely to come floating down toward their property. More than likely they aren't. In the northern areas it can be ice floating down, or just the weight of rainwater or snow which collapses structures, modified by the wind pressure. Send your kids to school, and tell them to learn some science. The rescue people don't rescue everyone, that's why there are recovery people.
The reason people stay behind is simple; we're attached to stuff, some more than others. By staying behind, even when there is slim to no hope, gives people a false sense of security in that they can save their stuff.
Replacing stuff is a pain, but it can be replaced. Lost lives can't.
Geez, people, use your heads. Where in the hell would everybody live if we didn't build on flood plains? Stop and think for a minute how many of our major metropolitan areas are built by bodies of water susceptible to flooding. Only a lot. No matter where you live, there are inherent risks. A tornado touched down four streets south of me this summer; should I up and move?
They had to do a "study" about this? Why?
The very reason they are offering up is the same one I post over and over after natural disasters. The majority of the people who stay are the ones who just don't have the means to go.
It's a matter of being caught, literally, between "the devil and the deep blue sea." It didn't take a study (how many tax dollars were given for this?) to figure it out, it only takes common sense, and if you have never lived or known anyone living in the conditions these people do, you will never understand the reasoning, regardless of how eloquently it is explained to you.
Psychotica: just couldn't resist implying race has something to do with it.
how about the people they show evacuating / moving to higher ground wearing flip flops or no shoes ~ Sneakers people ~ boots ~ you literally are running for your lives. Not saying everyone has to be a prepper with a 4 year food supply, enough generators to power their whole town, and an arsenal the national guard would envy ~ BUt flip flops and barefeet? Thats not a good call.
Go see the movie, Beasts of the Southern Wild, about this very subject. It will open your eyes to a subculture in LA.
they stay for the same reason I read nbc.com ... poor decision making
There's a movie, Beasts of the Southern Wild, it's out right NOW! Go see that movie, it explains everything about the psychology of these people when they are told to evacuate. You see that movie and it breaks your heart. There are some subcultures in America many of us don't even know about.
Unless you don't have a vehicle, there really is no excuse not to leave. I'd pile my son and 2 dogs into my car and drive north or west. Every trailer park trash has internet and facebook, don't tell me they can't find family or a friend to stay with that lives in a safer area. Or even sleep in your car somewhere safe!
I can understand those who do not have means or resources not leaving but to those who are able to leave and still dont, well then a big fat Darwin award to you and I hope you packed your water wings
...i am glad this question was asked in the article: "You were told to evacuate! Now you should be on your own and not expect others to put themselves in harm's way (for you)!"
they are stupid and 99% are white. The other 1% don't know what they are.
I am 61 years old, and lived in a coastal state that was hit by a number of hurricanes in my lifetime. We lived 20 miles from the shore, and on high ground, so flooding was not an issue. Hence, we never evacuated. In a well built house, not in a flood prone area, I don't see the need to leave. If I was right by the shore, or on low ground prone to flooding, that would be different; as no building is safe if inundated by flood water. In fact, the coastal areas of my state were devasted in those storms. Based on what I know happened to those areas, I would never live in a flood prone or immediate coastal area.
Security and excitement.
To guard their homes principally as you cannot trust local police to do any thing related to watching for looters when their busy saving flood victims, forcing evacuations, having coffee and donuts at Dunkin Donuts or even looting themselves.
Plus the excitement of the storm itself--often once in a lifetime.
It is not a matter of being frustrated at them for not having the resources or heart to leave, it is frustrating that if they want to and do not have the resources, no one has offered them a method of escape, i.e. government or city officials or those around them who can help them leave. Still wouldn't been worth risking your life over.
Wake up everybody!!! Most of the people who stayed during Katrina DID NOT HAVE THE MONEY TO LEAVE!!
I was one of them, my beloved was a c/4 c5 quadraplegic... We had been at the Superdome but time and room was running out... I needed to carry a lot of medical items for my beloved-most were lost or had to abandon.. Took basically nothing for myself except for meds which went missing... Us and several others were rushed to a military set up shelter in Tulane Hospital for those with special needs.. We could only take what we could carry.. My beloveds wheelchair and manu other folks medical things scooters, oxygen concentrators,etc were stolen..
Do they offer insurance living on a flood plain? If they do, how much is it? It has to be outrages especially after Katrina.
I'll tell you why many people stay (touched on in this article).
As my brother told me when I badgered him to leave, as I always do for hurricanes, when Katrina was bearing down:
"We stay because not everyone can leave. Somebody has to be here to help the old people and the kids."
That says all you need to know. I've never asked him to leave since. What that means is hands, and boats, and a shoulder to cry on will be needed during the storm by some or many of those around you IF the worse happens. And so they will not abandon them, even if the worst doesn't happen & it's just to help get the generators started or keep their neighbors' houses from being invaded by snakes and fire ants.
I grew up in a rural, very close-knit town in south La, so I've been thru my share of hurricanes. Many family members & friends still live there and in the surrounding towns. Same thought process applies to close-knit neighborhoods in the cities.
And for those of you who can't comprehend or empathize with that line of reasoning, then I feel sorry for you.
Amen! My "little" sister sat out Katrina at home just outside NOLA because she is completely wheelchair bound and the logistics were just too overwhelming to even consider leaving. On top of that, she has two small dogs that she would not even consider leaving behind. Knowing that she would be on her own for at least a week, she already had, long before the storm hit, more than ample stores of food, water, propane for cooking, a generator and enough gasoline for it to run for many days. She not only took responsibility for her household, but also allowed neighbors to run drop cords so they could have a refrigerator and at least a fan, plus helping them with food and water when their own supplies ran low.
She sat out Isaac as well, and had me calling gas stations this afternoon in the areas she and her neighbors could reach not because she was low on gas for her generator, but because a neighbor was. When I couldn't find one that would answer, she got into her van and went looking for gasoline for them.
Yes, there is a whole subculture in the south that most people will never see, and for the most part it's a damned fine one. Being trashy is not even remotely a part of it, and being trashy is far from being something that is unique to the south. Any sane person would be proud to be part of the predominant subculture of the south.
It can also be difficult to travel with pets and find accommodations for them, so it may seem easier for some to stay home to tough out the storm for that reason.
I'll tell you why many people stay (touched on in this article).
As my brother told me when I badgered him to leave, as I always do for hurricanes, when Katrina was bearing down:
"We stay because not everyone can leave. Somebody has to be here to help the old people and the kids."
That says all you need to know. I've never asked him to leave since. What that means is hands, and boats, and a shoulder to cry on will be needed during the storm by some or many of those around you IF the worse happens. And so they will not abandon them, even if the worst doesn't happen & it's just to help get the generators started or keep their neighbors' houses from being invaded by snakes and fire ants.
I grew up in a rural, very close-knit town in south La, so I've been thru my share of hurricanes. Many family members & friends still live there and in the surrounding towns. Same thought process applies to close-knit neighborhoods in the cities.
And for those of you who can't comprehend or empathize with that line of reasoning, then I feel sorry for you.
I stay. Not because I don't have the education or the money. But I have no where to go. When Rita hit Houston and our then Mayor White told everyone on TV to leave we had a parking lot instead of freeways. Plus all the shelters were full of people from Louisana. Decision, die out of the highway or die at home. My choice would be at home.
Even after reading the "reasons" that able-bodied people in the article stay, my opinion remains the same. By all means stay - because you are comfortable, mistrustful of others, or whatever - but don't expect rescuers to come and get you out. We all live with our decisions, you included.
I am prepare to die at home instead out on the freeways (now a parking lots during a storm) with no open shelters. I never would call for help. I know most people would not call. Besides if you are flooded there is no phone service. I think the only time you see people with signs on top of their homes is when the storm has passed and they have been without food and water for days and they have kids and the elderly. It has nothing to do with "..[being] comfortable, mistrustful of others, or whatever". It just the reality of the situation. Some people do not make this choice, it the only option they have. Heck I would love to live in a town that had no natural disasters that I could afford to move to and I would have a job waiting for me.
Second verse same as the first.
Unless you live there you don't know. Sometimes work up to the last minute. Employers figure its not going to hit until the next day. You have time. But the Evac traffic is hours long if it's a big area & you don't have time. I chose to live in a non-evac zone. But sometimes as with Tropical Storm Debby areas that never flood do. Sure if you know your are in a flood zone you should get out of the way. But I am not here to judge others. And neither should anyone else.
BTW all areas DO get hit by natural disasters. California not only has earthquakes but fires & mudslides annually. The East Coast storms al 4 seasons. All people react differently. Stop dividing us all further.
It must be nice to live in never-never land with all the rainbows and unicorns! If a hurricane or other disaster were to hit my town anytime between now and next Friday, I'd have to stay because I'M BROKE TILL PAYDAY. I am in an income bracket where I don't qualify for any help and I make too little money to make it from check to check. But just so you know.........I don't want any help from my government.......I don't trust them.
Most people don't leave because they don't want their stuff looted by the ones that don't leave. Others stay to help clean up quicker. Others stay because if there time has come, they would rather die at home.
No need to over analyze it, sometimes the simple answer is the correct answer.