When the mandatory evacuation for Ivan was called there were several elderly nursing home patients who died because of the time it took to get to Baton Rouge. It was like 12+ hours to go what normally took an hour. Ivan turned and completely missed New Orleans at the last minute. I could see the reasoning to a degree. I know I wouldn’t have hunkered down though.
IMO, some of the family members need to look at themselves for not evacuating their family member themselves, especially for those who were ambulatory instead of suing. I know I took my wheel chair bound, oxygen dependent father when I evacuated for Lili. Because I took responsibility for my father it freed up space, time, and personnel for those without family. Was it easy, hell no, my father was a pain in the ass but it was my responsibility not the government’s or other health care agency.
Look, I am “small government”, “keep the government out of my life as much as possible” conservative, as much as the next conservative. But I am a “small government”, “limited government” conservative, not a “no government” Libertarian.
Major natural catastrophes are extraordinary circumstances that represent the exception that proves the rule - security is the first thing (main thing) the government is required to do, or your freedom is but a notion, not a reality.
Should I take as much effort and responsibility to secure my own family? Yes. Does that limit the role of government to folding its arms and depending on my efforts alone, particularly in a major natural catastrophe? No. In fact, it has an obligation to be pro-active in its concerns and its actions and to give notice of what are the best actions people should take (because its information should be more complete, more robust) and it should be ready and able to demand that some of those best actions be taken and to offer assistance for members of its community to attain those best actions, for those who might need it.
To rely on all citizens to take a Libertarian approach and for the officials to wait, arms folded, and rely on nothing but individual citizens own actions, in those extreme circumstances, is an abdication of the concept of having any government at all. The dividing line is morality. Yes we each of a certain philosophical moral obligation for self-responsibility, while government, in those circumstances, has a legal moral obligation towards the whole community for the community role we, freely, assign to it.
Many Libertarians seem to be unable to realize the difference between philosophical purity and human reality, with regard to the moral obligations we have as individuals and the moral obligations we have as communities. Which is why I have never embraced the anarchy of the Libertarian purists.