5 Likes
The major Florida N-S arteries are mostly along the coasts, where they could serve the ports and beaches. Further inland you have to dodge swamps, rivers, lakes and sinkholes, so good direct routes are a pain to design and build.
3 Likes
Really? Wow. How do they make hands-free cell phone calls?
Us too, right in Seminole Heights. Here’s hoping that the flood prediction maps are accurate and that the wind driven debris doesn’t find our windows …
Good luck. I’ll buy the next round at Ella’s.
2 Likes
I used to work for the Florida DOT (in IT) - the logistics are insane and require a huge number of law enforcement personnel to keep people from getting on the southbound entrances.
Unfortunately most people automatically want to take the interstate roads or the Turnpike. The US highways (such as US19 or US27) are in pretty good shape and not as crowded as these. If you’re really adventurous take the two-lane state roads.
Are you talking about FloridaMan? Because he’s been drinking buddies with ol’ chaos for ages now.
1 Like
4 Likes
In Florida, wouldn’t getting inland away from flood zones mean heading north out of it? (Or catching a boat away from it to another port out of the danger zone.)
I always wonder why people don’t take the back roads when I see things like this. I have no idea how it is in Florida though. Due to the peninsula and swamps it might not be as much an option as elsewhere. But would generally seem a better bet than the highways. If millions of people are evacuating and you know the majority of them are gonna be on one of a couple of routes, I’d try to find another route. Cars run out of gas in the gridlock and block lanes, people get sick and die stuck in the traffic. My fear would be still being stuck there when the storm hit.
Huge parts of south Florida have been evacuated and the people that were there will not be in danger, will not be in need of a rescue, and have already found shelter “before the storm.” This IS what they should have done in Houston since they knew a BIG storm was coming.
The skies are busy too.
At least Houstonians had different directions to choose from. They could go west, or north, or even southwest as long as it was away from the coast. Floridians can only go north at this point.
I have an acquaintance in Palm Beach Gardens and she has a place to stay that should be safe, but she expects to lose her beach view apartment. She said there’s no gas, and all the hotels are booked so unless she could somehow teleport to another state, she was stuck.
Disney World is closing the park; that’s how you know it’s serious.
2 Likes
Having been a delivery driver for a pseudo-UPS company for several years in Florida, taking back roads is risky if you don’t know exactly where you’re going. Many of them are two-lanes, wind around to avoid low-lying, waterlogged areas (lakes, sinkholes, swamps, or farms), and rarely stay on a direct course (paper maps are hard to find these days).
My (not on paper) sister-in-law’s mother is paralyzed from the neck down and bedridden, lives in Homestead since before Hurricane Andrew.
I assume they’ll lose a second home, which really sucks since this one was pretty new, bought with settlement money from the medical malpractice suit.
They’re all riding it out in a hotel in Ocala right now, so I hope the storm peters out by the time it gets there.
3 Likes
Houston has done that before and ended up with many more deaths due to the evacuation than the hurricane. That might’ve influenced decisions.
I would have happily watched more than nine seconds of that.
Nah, they’ll ask for compensation from the state afterwards.
Because they didn’t evacuate, over 35 dead and hundreds of lives were put into real danger. Hard to imagine any species on earth that would choose to remain in place knowing a catastrophic storm is approaching. At least Florida showed common sense, as millions drove north as the storm approached from the south.
They have to keep that side open so the utility crews can stage themselves, and also at least so the fleet of gasoline trucks required to refuel 500,000 cars can get south and refill empty gas stations.
Last time Houston evacuated, >100 people died in traffic, not from accidents.
Nice Armchair You Got There
3 Likes
I believe it was Confucious who said, “Past performance does not guarantee future results.” There will always be people who stay behind in the face of imminent danger but they’re not normal.
