That is the question. I'm pretty sure, speaking for myself, that if I had evacuated my home and sat on a highway for umpteen hours and then find out that it was all for naught...next time, I would stay put. And probably drown or get blown to bits!
I was/am naive about hurricane forecasting. I thought it was more precise. I am very thankful that the worse case scenario isn't going to happen. I hope all the experts were mistaken and Rita turns into a TS and bothers nobody.
If I saw a storm that looked like this storm looked yesterday, I wouldn't underestimate it in the future. Am not now either.
We run into that problem here. Every year we get threatened but rarely get slammed. Many like me still prepare but I also hear, things like it always turns or goes to Mexico. We've been thru the tropical winds, no big deal etc.
"I was/am naive about hurricane forecasting. I thought it was more precise. I am very thankful that the worse case scenario isn't going to happen. I hope all the experts were mistaken and Rita turns into a TS and bothers nobody."
I sure hope so, too -- my parents are in southeastern Louisiana as we speak. They weren't there when Katrina hit and they were on the west side, so their house is all right, but who knows with this one.
Generally speaking, when an area hasn't been hit for a long time by a bad one, people forget the devastation. Look at the folks who stayed in Biloxi, even after Camille in 1969. Had Katrina not just happened, I think it's very safe bet that not so many Texans would have evacuated -- and perhaps not so many evacuations would have been called for.
As you can see now, deciding whether to evacuate or not and when to do it is VERY hard. It's easy to play quartertback when you're sitting in your chair -- not so easy when you're the one on the field looking at a 320-pound guy who might or might not get through to you.