Originally Posted by ArmyFerret

As the first of the 2 million people who fled Gustav began to trickle home Tuesday from shelters, many grumbled about the food, the heat, the overcrowding, the uncertainty and the frustrating wait for the all-clear. Some evacuees, particularly in Texas, on the far fringes of the storm's path, suggested authorities overreacted in demanding they leave their homes.

"Next time, it's going to be bad because people who evacuated like us aren't going to evacuate," Catherine Jones, 53, of Silsbee, Texas, who spent three days on a cot at a church shelter with her disabled son. "They jumped the gun."

Emergency officials strongly defended the decision to evacuate coastal areas, saying that with something as unpredictable as a hurricane, it is better to be safe than sorry — a lesson driven home by Katrina, which killed 1,600 people in the U.S. in 2005, compared with nine deaths attributed to Gustav.

After Gustav, will people heed warnings next time? - Yahoo! News

List of United States hurricanes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

New Orleans,Louisiana hurricanes

I don't think they will. Statistically, 54 hurricanes have hit or affected the Louisiana area since 1852, or about once every 2.8 years. Of those, 20 were category 3 or greater, or one every 7.7 years. New Orleans itself has a hurricane or tropical storm come within 60 miles once every 3.8 years, and within 40 miles once every 12.45 years.

Sorry for all the numbers, but basically, are the people of New Orleans going to accept massive evacuations every few years when they are only likely to be hit by a hurricane equal to Katrina's devastation every couple of decades?

Originally Posted by Andrewl

I think you would be correct except... Increasing population density and land erosion will make even the same historical rate of storms that much worse. More people will suffer from essentially the status quo. If the rate should somehow increase it will not be sustainable to continue to live on the most vulnerable areas of the gulf coast and people will move inland, putting pressure on those communities resources in turn. Add sea level rise to the mix and its pretty hard to imagine a heavily populated gulf coast in about 50 years give or take.

Andrew

Originally Posted by John Drake

I don't understand, the Coast moves further inland so it therefore depopulates?? One would think it would become denser. Also, can you think of any region, anywhere in the world, that is depopulated because of storms? Cold, aridity, yes, but I can't offhand think of any where storms per se, are the problem. People learn to deal with storms

Originally Posted by ArmyFerret

As the first of the 2 million people who fled Gustav began to trickle home Tuesday from shelters, many grumbled about the food, the heat, the overcrowding, the uncertainty and the frustrating wait for the all-clear. Some evacuees, particularly in Texas, on the far fringes of the storm's path, suggested authorities overreacted in demanding they leave their homes.

"Next time, it's going to be bad because people who evacuated like us aren't going to evacuate," Catherine Jones, 53, of Silsbee, Texas, who spent three days on a cot at a church shelter with her disabled son. "They jumped the gun."

Emergency officials strongly defended the decision to evacuate coastal areas, saying that with something as unpredictable as a hurricane, it is better to be safe than sorry — a lesson driven home by Katrina, which killed 1,600 people in the U.S. in 2005, compared with nine deaths attributed to Gustav.

After Gustav, will people heed warnings next time? - Yahoo! News

List of United States hurricanes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

New Orleans,Louisiana hurricanes

I don't think they will. Statistically, 54 hurricanes have hit or affected the Louisiana area since 1852, or about once every 2.8 years. Of those, 20 were category 3 or greater, or one every 7.7 years. New Orleans itself has a hurricane or tropical storm come within 60 miles once every 3.8 years, and within 40 miles once every 12.45 years.

Sorry for all the numbers, but basically, are the people of New Orleans going to accept massive evacuations every few years when they are only likely to be hit by a hurricane equal to Katrina's devastation every couple of decades?

Originally Posted by John Drake

I don't understand, the Coast moves further inland so it therefore depopulates?? One would think it would become denser. Also, can you think of any region, anywhere in the world, that is depopulated because of storms? Cold, aridity, yes, but I can't offhand think of any where storms per se, are the problem. People learn to deal with storms

Originally Posted by Speedyer

I have to disagree, I think they will heed the warning next time, if only because the lessons from Katrina will linger a while still. Of course personally I think focusing on New Orleans so much during this storm was a mistake, but that's to be expected when you have such a dangerous storm heading towards a city that captivated the nation three years ago because of what didn't go right. Still I think they did the right thing evacuating people early realistically.

Of course people are going to grumble, evacuating isn't cheap, and its absolutely no fun. So yeah, people are going to complain. This wasn't the storm people expected it to be, it only came ashore at a Cat 2. Still lets us not forget that there are three more tropical storms out there with the potential to become major hurricanes sometime in the future. With at least one going to make landfall on US soil. So this season is certainly not over with Gustav.

Originally Posted by Speedyer

Of course the way it looks now, it doesn't look like there will be a lot of time to wait for the next time. I especially don't like Ike. o.o Hannah doesn't scare me so much, probably because its having problems becoming a hurricane. While Ike is already a cat 4 storm.

Originally Posted by Andrewl

Ike is back at category 4 and its track as of today has it going straight into the gulf and heading for NO. Are people going to leave.....again.... have they even gone back home yet? Is the power even on yet?




Andrew

Originally Posted by Mrs. M

Many areas are still without power but please, remember that there are other areas in the state and in Mississippi that got hit a lot harder than New Orleans did during Gustav.
Many of those in New Orleans are ungrateful pigs and it's embarrassing to watch them on the local news stations complaining about the accommodations at the shelters they were taken to. It seems many expected five star accommodations as if they were on a vacation or something! A family was interviewed in Houston and they were complaining that they had to spend all their money on food and gas while evacuating to a hotel and they want FEMA to repay them...they never would tell the reporter why they didn't take advantage of one of the free shelters.
I know I sound cruel but I truly have no patience for people like the ones I mentioned!

Originally Posted by Andrewl

Oh i totally understand that its not only NO. I only used it as a point of reference. In fact it is partly your posts on these events that reminds us that there are other areas that are being hit.

I read somewhere that because many gas stations have no power there is a fear that people who do choose to leave again if Ike really does hit won't be able to becuase they can't fill their cars... that would be terrible.

Andrew

Originally Posted by goober

My parents live in Florida, for the first 20 years they lived there, they religiously evacuated with every hurricane warning, after years of doing this, spending a couple of days living in a motel, only to return to their condo, always in perfect condition, they decided a couple of years ago to stay. That time the hurricane hit their area directly, they were without power, they are on an "island", and they couldn't go anywhere for several days, as the drawbridges were left open and with the power out they were stranded. No power, no air conditioning, and no elevators (no backup power) they live on the sixth floor.
So now they are back to evacuating.

I expect that "evacuations" of New Orleans will be rather complete for some time, but as the years go by, if the storms miss and people return to perfect homes after living in shelters for a few days, eventually there will be plenty of people who ignore the warnings.

In 1978, we had the "Blizzard of '78" here in Massachusetts, the state was shut down for a week, no private vehicles were allowed on the road. Personally, I went out on a date, that lasted a week, good thing we hit it off. I tried to go back to my apartment after 3 days, and the National Guard turned me around.
But after that, every time we had a big storm headed our way, the stores were sold out of batteries, flashlights, bottled water, etc., now, not so much, but the effect lasted for over 20 years.