Poverty. The answer is always poverty. Evacuation is not free and never has been.
Currently sitting in the Tampa Bay area while a category 5+ hurricane comes barreling at me. I’m in flood zone D next to E so I shouldn’t have any issues there. In a building that is solid brick/cinderblock construction, built like a bunker. Don’t worry about me. I got water, food, and enough fat to get me through the winter as they say.
The one thing I don’t have is the hundreds or thousands of dollars it would take to drive 2+ states away and get a hotel for a week. I simply don’t have it. Then you have all these people in places like Missouri or Montana posting this question about why people would not evacuate. We don’t have the goddamn money. It’s not hubris. We SHOULD evacuate. I don’t see any of the people saying this offering up a spot on their couch. We should always evacuate… somewhere other than the house of the person who thinks we should, apparently.
Yeah people have this idea that the government actually does jack shit except for being like “hey leave the area or you’re gonna die, sucks to be you lol” maybe they think they’re working to set up thousands of people in stadiums or whatever, and sometimes that does happen, but overwhelmingly it’s just telling people to spend over a months’ rent to stay at a hotel with surge pricing.
I literally had an argument with someone who thought that they send in buses and helicopters to take people out of their homes
I was like “Maybe in other countries, but here, you’re lucky if the cops don’t shoot at you and say you were a looter”
They will evacuate you if your life is in immediate danger. That’s about it. And that is AFTER the storm.
They meant beforehand, like to get you out of the way of the storm, which I have never seen or heard of
they do it in Cuba. there’s a whole organized civil service that is called up for extreme weather to help people, families, those with disabilities, the elderly, to evacuate with their necessities, medications, and pets into secured housing locations when the order is given. there is no “report to work anyway” going on except emergency services and community organization.
Jacobin did an article on it some years ago. should be easy to find.
Cuba has it worked out despite being very much isolated and forcibly kept impoverished in the same area as hurricanes bring destruction, it is rare as hell for someone to die there due to a hurricane… unlike every western allied nation and state in the region, where people get killed just about every time, sometimes many people.
the statistics are and should be one of the most obvious embarrassments and failures of capitalist ideology, but nobody in the US learns about any of this. ever.
found it: https://jacobin.com/2017/08/hurricane-harvey-cuba-disaster-plan
The Cuban people never fail to amaze and inspire me in what they manage to accomplish despite the hardships forced upon them.
If I understand it every single person in the country has a designated shelter and orders on what they’re supposed to do, who they help, and so forth for disasters. It’s unbelievable, it could never happen in the us.
Makes me think of the Soviet Metros. The Moscow Metro was built far, far deeper and far larger than it needed to be, partially because it was built to be beautiful because useful things should be beautiful, but also so it could accomodate enormous numbers of people if the Americans attacked. The Soviets sat down and said “how can we build enough shelters for everyone?” And then did their best.
America never built large scale public shelters partially because the government thought it was too communist and partially because they figured the cities were acceptable casualties and the
people who lived there 
were acceptable losses.
yeah, it’s pretty clear they could give a fuck about any of us. however, i have no doubt there is enough space for the wealthy and powerful via “continuity of government” infrastructure which is all, of course, highly classified from all us dumbass citizens because why would we need to know where to go during a disaster? after a big enough mass casualty event, they would just relax, reshape, and contract border and naturalization policy at whatever rate wouldn’t overwhelm the containment and fragmentation of class consciousness.
Been in Florida most of my life and no, that does not happen. Best you get is free busses so homeless can get to storm shelters.
For those who may be in need of it, I made a thread that includes info for using public transit to get to storm shelters: https://hexbear.net/post/3632288
That would require the government to help poor people and helping poor people is communism, sweetie.
Like, people who have never even been in a heavy storm saying shit like this rankles me something fierce
I’ve seen tornadoes and hurricanes up close and nothing makes you feel smaller than to see something like that
Like, these are the times when there should be some force dedicated to helping people evacuate because forcing people to handle these situations on their own is like telling an ant to try to fight the sun
Nothing like applying rugged individualism to fighting the literal forces of nature.
As a Floridian I have stand-your-ground and castle doctrine so I do literally have the right to shoot at it and I thank the flag every day for the right to defend myself.
Big government strikes again!
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/10/florida-sheriff-warns-residents-not-to-shoot-at-hurricane-irma.html
BECOME UNGOVERNABLE
I salute the heroes who go out every hurricane to try to fight it off.
For me it’s earthquakes and tsunamis. You can survive the sky, but when the earth and the sea turn against you there is no hope.
There are organizations helping with evac, but it’s mostly folks like us - lefties, ad hoc anarchist efforts, churches, and just regular decent people. It’s not enough, but, well, it’s what we’ve got.
If florida were under the jurisdiction of China, yes. But it isn’t
They literally have made busses available to get people to shelters before the storm: https://hexbear.net/post/3632288
They do. In Florida right now they have free busses to remove people and free storm shelters set up to take them to. Even special needs/ health accommodations.
It’s an election year, people might get a free tshirt and some paper towels during a whistlestop tour
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41504165
There are resources being made available to help people get to safety ahead of the storm: https://hexbear.net/post/3632288