I love this interpretation of polling data regarding the Hurricane Rita evacuation.

About 70 percent of those who left were afraid of the storm — fearing for their safety from wind and flooding — as Rita seemed poised for a near-direct hit. Only one in five listed evacuation orders as the primary motivation for taking flight, according to the poll of residents in Harris and seven adjacent counties.

Now I live in one of the mandatory evacuation zones, but if asked I would have said I left because I was afraid of the storm. Hell, I live four blocks from Galveston Bay, halfway between Houston and Galveston. All the models showed that my entire house was going to be under water. Damn straight I was afraid – that’s why I got ou I didn’t need someone to tell me “Greg, there is an evacuation set – you’ve got to leave” before I decided it might just be a good thing to get out of Dodge. I had already made the decision to go because I didn’t want to be one of those people trapped in an attic drowning. The fact that the government was telling me to go was simply an additional spur that determined when I left, not if I was going to go. I suspect the same mindset was at work for many others in the mandatory evacuation area.

What shocks me is that there were actually 20% that wouldnÂ’t sufficiently concerned to leave if we were getting a storm like was predicted in the days before the evacuation.

Posted by: Greg at 10:58 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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