"Eh, no he didn't. He had the buses, didn't use 'em, could've done more."
While true, there are certain practical problems. One, getting bus drivers. Two, time. The problem with hurricanes is the uncertainty of where they land. A hundred miles, heck, 20 miles can make an awful lot of difference. 20 miles from the eye wall means literal orders of magnitude difference in experienced effects. Plotting landfall of a hurricane with that degree of accuracy in an actionable time(at least 48 hours, 72 is a lot better) is beyond our technology for the foreseeable future(say 5 years, probably more for anything but a limited subset of storms). So what to do? When an evacuation order is issued, the population games it. To evacuate is a complex decision. There are costs involved, the risk of dying(pretty abstract) vs. the actual costs of the evacuation and the risks of having your property looted while you are gone. Dealing with insurance for looting and actual damages can take years, if the issue is ever resolved. Which is why I take a very draconian approach to looting. It is a very real concern in the wake of a hurricane, and it is often essentially uninsureable. Assuming that the items in question are even replaceable. And this is an issue that causes reasonable people to hesitate in saving themselves and their families. So you have to be pretty certain a given area is in danger when you issue an evacuation order. Too many false alarms and people decide that they are safer to ignore them.
Even if this can be ignored, most cities of any size can only support a certain amount of traffic on their roads before gridlock is a problem. And riding out a storm in a vehicle is probably the most dangerous thing that can be done. |
