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Comment by nebabyte | Hacker News Reader

> What they should have done is learned when to move or when to stay by: 1. Not buying a house in Houston and then 2. Gotten out well before it was imminent

I'm not sure what degree of freedom you're supposing they have, but not everyone is able to uproot their life on some survivalist kick. Plenty of people have their roots and networks where they are, so "just don't live there" isn't a universally applicable "fix".

I've been fortunate enough to be able to move to a place ideally suited to my needs (and as I don't need much I suppose I could move on relatively short notice if needed) but even I recognize that not everyone can afford to follow suit.

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You're missing his point. He's not saying he expects everyone to do this. He's just saying when to move or not move is often more important than any other considerations.

Note that he included as an option leaving well before the storm hit. And there was plenty of warning on this storm.

Exactly, there is no reason anyone should be on the roof of their homes in Houston other than inability to heed warnings and read a weather report.

When a mass evacuation of Houston occurred due to Hurricane Rita, 107 people died from the conditions caused by the mass evacuation. The conditions on the roads were very very poor for those following your suggested advice of "heeding the warnings". The storm in the end was not as big of an event as it was made out to be.

It's not as simple a decision as you're making it out to be.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Rita#Evacuation_deat...

The governor told people to leave. The mayor told people to stay. One of them isn't going to be reelected next term...

Probably what should have happened (I'm using my perfect hindsight here..) is they should have told people living in low-lying areas to either go live with relatives or friends who were on high ground, or leave town altogether. And everyone else to stay. This would have prevented the mass exodus that clogged roads during previous storms, but gotten more people to safety.

I agree that the best option was people who had options leaving early enough that it didn't cause traffic snarls. That leaves emergency services with fewer people to handle in the worst case.

Despite what I said before, I agree it's a really tricky call, especially for authorities considering a mass evacuation, which is often not the best thing. Houston has a lot of people, that changes everything.

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