We went through 3 hurricanes last year with the eyes only a few miles away. Central Florida was hit very hard.
Before Frances I remember that motels and hotels up as far as Tennessee were booked up. People just got in their cars and went. Many got caught on highways that were backed up and ended up staying in all kinds of shelter near where they were on the highways.
By the time people knew they had to evacuate, it was almost too late. By that time people in inland areas like us are praying that our homes will be preserved. People in coastal areas by that time are having to decide something very vital…do they stay home and take a chance or do they get on the road with most likely jammed highways and nowhere to go.
Here is the thing I never see mentioned. When a major storm is threatening, it is hard to find gas for your car. Two days before Jeanne, the 3rd storm, hit our area, there was no gas to be found. How does one evacuate from an area when they can not get gas for their car?
Whenever a hurricane threatens an area of Florida, the stores run out of stock quickly. Days before. Katrina hit South Florida, our area was not touched. However the stores were short on just about everything, and gas lines were long.
I guess I just get tired of all the platitudes about how easy it is to evacuate when they say to do so. It is not easy. Sometimes you have to make a choice to stay in your home or get caught on the road.
The days after Jeanne hit us last year we had empty grocery stores, no electricity for days, no way to find out if any restaurants were open and serving. Right wing owns the radio waves here, and they did not want to give up regular programming. They did it for 6 hours after Jeanne, then they said back to regular programs.
We thought about evacuating before Jeanne, though we live 40 something miles from the coast. We quickly changed our minds. There was no where to stop on the way to our children’s home in other states. The highways were bumper to bumper for miles.
Evacuating from Florida with its long coastline is a virtual impossibility.
Just a few unorganized thoughts that came into my brain as they have blamed the victims of Katrina on the Gulf Coast. I have felt for them, as we had to decide that 3 times last year. We were lucky, many were not.
And of course many residents of NOLA did not even own cars. Something to consider for future emergency planning I suppose.
You are so correct. I have mentally mapped out the process of evacuating from DC metro area. The traffic I saw moving out of New Orleans moved at a better clip than an average day on the Beltway in rush hour. If there’s an accident, it halts to a standstill. On 9-2, the governer of Maryland actually had to make an announcement that gas stations would not be closing (due to Katrina shortages) — a rumor that had people in a panic with long gas lines forming.
Now, imagine a real evacuation.
Any criticism of those who did not evacuate just about made me cry. We had 3 huge decisions to make in 6 weeks last year. We knew that our kids from other states would not be allowed in to help us after the storm. They even turned away families coming in for nursing home patients. I don’t know how long they did that, but I know they did for a while…calling out state an emergency.
I often wondered who else they turned away. I can’t find any of the articles now mentioning all that. It broke my heart at the time. Some of it was personal knowledge from a friend with a mother in a home here.
Our kids and we made plans on how to contact local short wave operators, and we had all kinds of plans made. But after the fact, it all seemed kind of useless for a while. Going for days without power screws everything up.