03-15-2011, 11:13 PM
What people don't realize is that while they are probably right that they don't need to evacuate, when they are wrong, they may not find out until it's too late.
In my lifetime, disaster prediction has been inaccurate enough to ensure that, sooner or later, the best predictions of this year's "big one" will be wrong. When everyone tries to run after the last minute, it gets ugly - sometimes piles of bodies washing up on the beach ugly. Galveston 1900, Key West 1919, Indonesia 2004, New Orleans 2005, Japan 2011 - I'm sure I'm forgetting a bunch, and there was a period in the mid to late 1900s when we were blessed with an absence of major natural disasters.
I saw a home video made by some people who "rode out" one of the major hurricanes of 2005 (on YouTube), if I recall correctly, it started with the water coming in the living room, so they climbed into the attic, then the water started making the attic uncomfortable, so they blasted out the gable end with a shotgun, and I think they had some lame plan involving a small aluminum fishing boat, which ultimately ended with a ride on a Coast Guard helicopter - otherwise the video wouldn't have made it to the Internet.
I'm glad we've got the Coast Guard, but it's a very thin safety net that won't work at all if you've got 100+ people who need saving.