What if you can't afford to flee a hurricane?
vox.com
vox.com
Woof. I guess you’re just going to have to stay put and risk your giant family against that thing that happens several times a year where you live.
It can get complicated for very ill people who, e.g., will need dialysis. But for most people, no matter how poor you are, if you need shelter from the storm, you can get it without too much hassle. Yes, it will suck, but you'll be alive to complain about how bad it was.
"Just don't be poor!" is not a take worthy of HN.
Highly recommended.
If you do manage to save that, where does the money for rent, etc in the destination come from?
Where do the savings to help you buy food until you can get a job come from?
Moving locations is not just the cost of a ticket - even though that itself may be more than can be afford - so don’t be an ass when talking about people who are in poverty. Just try to be a decent person and consider that other people’s circumstances may not match your own, and sometimes it’s not a trivial fix.
"while the Florida division of emergency management is also offering free evacuation shuttles to shelters."
The whole point is for many folk you literally cannot afford it, it isn’t “your life is worth some debt” it is “you do not have money or credit that gives you an option”:
* having a car costs money, so many poor people don’t have one
* gas costs money, even people who do have one are often running on the minimum amount of gas, and literally cannot afford to fill the tank, let alone buy enough gas to get a meaningful distance, assuming the car is sufficiently reliable.
* taxis, uber/lyft (even with limits on price gouging/“surge pricing”) cost even more money and during an evacuation if they’re even available
* public transit for many folk is not an option (not available, under equipped, …) and often during evacuations is out of order because the transit operators are also trying to leave
So they literally cannot afford to leave.
You also have “can I afford to get fired”, as happened to those people who were killed due to their employer mandating they work until after the point of safe evacuation hit. With little to no employee protections a person who is on a week-to-week budget can become homeless if they’re fired, so the risk for “ignore evacuation warnings, you must come to work or you’re fired” is catastrophic.
I get that many people, especially on mediums like HN think they know what poverty is like because - for example - they had little to “no” money when they were students, but that’s still an unbelievably far cry from actual poverty.
For people in poverty claiming “you can afford it”, because of some “your life has value” nonsense completely disregards the whole concept of poverty. The literal point is that these are people who have nothing that can be used or converted into anything that can be used to escape.
Don’t suggest “then go on foot” either, because again dismissive, but I’d also hope very obviously a bad plan for anyone.
Uber was free in at least one area of FL.
They’re not an option for people who need to actually evacuate the area.
Who are the people the article is about.
There are lots of options available for people, except those in poverty as there are no free long distance evacuation and return services.
You also say “at least they’ll be alive”, but you’re assuming their options at the other end are meaningfully better than risking just bunkering down where they are (especially in light of the US Supreme Court allowing criminalization of homelessness).