Evacuation would have been difficult . . . there was Hurricane Bonnie to the North, Hurricane Charlie to the South.
Still, a million people evacuated . . . mostly to shelters as all the motel rooms within a 600 mile radius were booked.
Most shelters were full and turning people away 24 hours before the storm hit.
So, with a hurricane to your north, a hurricane to your south, no hotels available, and no shelters . . . do you risk getting caught on I-75 in a cat III hurricane?
And if you did manage to go inland to Arcadia, even Orlando, you would have still been hit.
Evacuation sounds good (and is recommended for those living in mobiles and along the coast), but just where to evacuate to?
That's the question that kept most people in their homes.
PuntaGorda
Well, Tampa Bay evacuated about a million folks. They started on Thursday afternoon.
First St. Pete evacuated, and then in Tampa at 6 AM on Friday they were told to evacuate.
My MIL was bused by her waterfront retirement home in St. Pete to a sister facility in Sarasota which was inland and well fortified (ironically she had more weather than we did, but it was a safe building, not on the water).
I can't see ANY reason for somebody to stay in a mobile home with a hurricane approaching.
If the shelters were full, then it's the county's fault for not opening more.
I've thought about and I don't believe in trying to outrun a storm by going in the same direction of the storm. If the shelters were full on Thursday, we probably would have headed inland, toward Okeechobee or Clewiston, and stayed in the car if necessary. You just can't stay on a barrier island or in a mobile home during a storm.
All the people I saw today on TV stayed because they wanted to.