Tropical storm Irene approaches

Reba said:
It depends on the route. When we evacuated for Hurricane Floyd, we took the so-called back road route. So did a jillion other evacuees. We sat for hours, not moving an inch, on a two-lane road in the woods, overnight.

Also, there are some routes that eventually, you're going to have to touch the interstate at some point.

A couple years, during another evacuation (we stayed at home), people couldn't even get out of downtown Charleston much less get on the interstate or back roads before they either ran out of time or gas. Charleston is built on a peninsula, so there are limited ways off of there.

A little tidbit of trivia for evacuees:

When traffic isn't moving, and you're stuck in the woods overnight, there will be buses escorted by police whizzing past you who are allowed to cut ahead. Those are the prisoners evacuated from the jails.

The buses that are stuck in traffic with the passengers duct taped into their seats are the elderly people evacuated from nursing homes.

There sometimes is no easy solution.
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:shock::shock::shock:

Oh my god really?? Duct tape?? That doesn't sound very humane....
 
First Rockin' & Rollin', now getting ready for Swishin' & Swayin' :D

Yes, I'm taking the storm serious - will finish moving stuff indoors when I get home after work.
 
sunny_signs said:
:shock::shock::shock:

Oh my god really?? Duct tape?? That doesn't sound very humane....
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I asked an Emergency worker down here about that. He said, the reason they use duct tape is due to the fact that it will hold when wet. Down here, they will make sure the resident or inmate has a blanket over them, then the duct tape goes around their upper legs under the seat and another around the chest if possible like a shoulder strap in the normal seat belt. This way, if the water comes up, then they will not "float around" and get hurt. Seems a little inhumane, but it has been shown to actually save lives.
 
KristinaB said:
I asked an Emergency worker down here about that. He said, the reason they use duct tape is due to the fact that it will hold when wet. Down here, they will make sure the resident or inmate has a blanket over them, then the duct tape goes around their upper legs under the seat and another around the chest if possible like a shoulder strap in the normal seat belt. This way, if the water comes up, then they will not "float around" and get hurt. Seems a little inhumane, but it has been shown to actually save lives.
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If the water is that deep in a bus, the bus will float and roll over, and they'll drown. That doesn't make sense. Besides, they were evacuating before the storm hit, before it was even raining. The reason they were taped in was to make them "manageable."
 
Just cleaned up my front and backyards so there will be no loose stuff lying around. It was hard work because we had a lot of stuff lying around from the unfished deck project. Hauling all the wood into the shed while it was raining was definitely challenging!!! Hopefully, we didnt overlook anything. Also, got out emergency kit updated, got food, batteries, and water. We are good to go.
 
I hope evacuations have improved since the one I was in:

...Some of the worst traffic jams occurred exiting Charleston, South Carolina. It took some people 16 hours to drive from Charleston to Columbia - normally less than a 2-hour drive. In 1989, when Hurricane Hugo whacked the city, Gov. Carroll Campbell had quickly ordered that all lanes of Interstate 26 be reserved for westbound traffic out of the city. But in 1999 state transportation planners decided that this exodus strategy was too disruptive and dragged their feet in repeating it - dallying 8 hours after the order came in to reverse lanes.

Being in an auto is among the most unsafe places to weather a hurricane. If Floyd had sped up and caught the jammed motorists, the result could have been the biggest hurricane disaster since Galveston in 1900. Charleston's mayor, Joseph Riley, was outraged and denounced fellow Democrat Gov. Jim Hughes: "What you're doing is running the risk of killing my people." The Charleston Post and Courier editorialized: "The state was unconscionably inefficient in its evacuation effort.... Though the traffic was bound to be bad, the state's inept strategy made it much worse than it had to be."

Once people got 100 miles or more inland, many found no hotel vacancies and were left to wander like gypsies across the landscape. The traffic fiascos were repeated in many places when people sought to return to their homes. The return was not helped by the fact that many service stations were out of gas.

Costs of the Evacuation

The evacuation cost more than $2 billion, according to state emergency experts. Clinton and Witt painted the evacuation as a success because of the limited number of fatalities. However, assuming that the 2.5 million evacuees lost an average of two days each, the total time lost from the evacuation was equivalent to the normal life span of almost 250 people. Since 95 percent of the cost of the evacuation was borne by the evacuees, the government can proclaim it was a great success - simply because politicians and bureaucrats don't have to pay the bill....
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King of Chaos: The Fiasco of Floyd
 
whatdidyousay! said:
What horrible mess that was! My sister is a nurse and while she was at work a tornado warning was issues but my sister did not know it. She got stuck in it on the way home! She said a car as flipped over right in front of her! My sister got home OK!
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Wow!
 
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