Cunha and her family could drive north to Georgia or Alabama. But Florida has only I-75 and I-95 and both have been parking lots for days. Flimsy house or stranded in a car that ran out of gas? As for that gas, good luck finding any. Bottled water? Store shelves have been empty for days. How about plywood to board up windows? None available. She wrote:
The last thing we need are demands that we leave. Mandatory evacuation could do more harm than Irma herself. [Governor] Scott has the best of intentions, but you can't tell millions upon millions of people to evacuate without giving them any real way to do so. Two major highways just won't cut it for that parade of refugees.
Meaningful evacuation would have meant public transport, safe shelters along the way, medical help and facilities throughout, and safe shelter, food, water and sanitary supplies on the other side of it all. For free. Because evacuating is expensive: You need gas and a reliable vehicle. You need good health to make a slow-moving, anxiety-inducing journey with thousands of other people surrounding you at every turn. You need money to buy supplies and emergency equipment, and to miss work. You simply need things we don't normally have. Being prepared is a luxury, and it's not always possible.
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We need planes flying in and out of here, getting people to safety cheaply.
What Irma makes clear is this: It is not the residents' fault when a storm takes everything they have. It's the country's. We know these storms come, and private citizens only have so much spare cash and time to deal with it. We need comprehensive state and county evacuation plans. We need a preventive plan set into motion before a storm hits to save lives. Sending in the cleanup crew to count the bodies and save the traumatized survivors isn't enough.
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