***I honestly don't know what more you can do, as a city official, than tell people to leave.***
In a city that faces almost CERTAIN Destruction from a moderate direct hit??
Well... A plan to use ALL assets to evacuate EVERYBODY out in 24 hours would have been a start. THEN if they choose not to go, so be it. Get names of next-of-kin...
Having a plan to return emergency assets within hours of the end of a storm....
Sticking 30,000 people in a potential Deathtrap, without food, water and facilities, including medical, is NOT a plan...
I hope you work for FEMA, because you obviously have the plan all worked out. If not, what a great mind and resource is going to waste. Maybe we can put you in place before the next quake in Cali, or volcanic eruption.
In all seriousness, what can you do? You need all emergency staff in the city, on the ground, during the crisis, not trying (vainly, is very possible) to shuttle people to higher ground who don't even want to leave. Some of them would probably hide in there houses anyway. What's happening now is a pretty hardcore effort to save people who made a big mistake. And i'm not blaming them for it - that's just what a disaster is sometimes, people in harms way, whether they put themselves there, or ended up there by chance.
JMHO.
"Sticking 30,000 people in a potential Deathtrap, without food, water and facilities, including medical, is NOT a plan..."
I completely agree. Those in power, should have had an evacuation plan for those who had no transportation or money to leave on their own. Now it's almost 3 days later - with a threat of rising water - they are still working on discovering what the so called plan * IS *.