03-16-2011, 03:28 AM
Oh yeah, it's frustrating as hell... most of your life you aren't really impeded by government workers directly - but in a disaster evacuation scenario, you've got the worst of all worlds coming together: government workers doing something they don't have much, if any experience with, worried about life safety issues.
The best way I've found to deal with them is: 1) stay away from shelters, 2) stay away from "mandatory" evacuations when possible (i.e. leave early, return late), 3) try to take it in a "vacation from the ordinary" frame of mind, instead of a "they're wasting my time by doing their job poorly" frame of mind. Yes, they (collectively) are often doing their job poorly, but often the individuals in the system are doing an outstanding job, within the limits of their authority, it's the system as a whole that fails.
As to "wasting your time" - yeah, probably, but is it really that important to you? If it is, maybe you want to get involved in disaster preparedness drills and help make it go better next time? If nothing else, maybe you would learn to appreciate some of the challenges that these people are facing which lead to "pointless" seven hour delays for a bunch of evacuees.