Evacuating Florida

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

There has been a lot of discussion, here and elsewhere about evacuating Florida.

Let's imagine the best possible scenario:
Everyone is willing to evacuate.
They will all have someplace to go once they get out of the state.
Those who don't have cars will be provided transportation.
All pets can be accommodated.


I know that my scenario isn't realistic, but my question is, given those (unrealistic) conditions, how long would it take to get everyone out of the state? And let's assume no crashes that block roads, and gas is magically available. And that all north-south highways make the normally southbound lines to north bound traffic only.

The population of Florida is over 20 million. Not counting however many tourists are there at any time.

I suspect the essential problem is the lack of roads. It looks as if Florida has far fewer secondary roads than do many other states. So it would all come down to the carrying capacity of the roads they do have.

And just one personal comment. I understand that there are those who don't have a car, couldn't afford a motel, have a bunch of cats or dogs (more than three strikes me as problematical in terms of getting them all to safety with the humans), and several other reasons. I don't understand, and have no sympathy for anyone who simply downplays the destructive nature of so powerful a hurricane, or just wants to stay put to see what it would be like.

[beachbum bob]

1. if you are prepared and the house that was built to take the forces

why play tag with a hurricane? Evacuating an entire state like florida is pure nonsense We have lived with hurricanes forever and somehow we still exist. Sound like you have never been around one.

[customerserviceguy]

8. I've read

that the buildings on the east coast of Florida are generally more resistant to hurricanes than the ones on the west side of Florida, as there hasn't been a direct hit on that coast for a few generations.

Any older buildings on the east coast that could not stand hurricane force winds have had plenty of opportunity to have been damaged and replaced by newer buildings that are up to more current codes, and that just hasn't happened in the Tampa area.

[Weekend Warrior]

13. .

https://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/atlantic/2004/Major-Hurricane-Charley

[customerserviceguy]

14. Thanks, didn't know about that one.

Back in 2004, I was living in Washington State, and we didn't pay too much attention to hurricane season.

[Weekend Warrior]

17. There have been a number of hits.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Wilma

[beachbum bob]

23. complacency has always been a problem in florida with hurricanes and new residents

then it goes into to full panic and chaos when faced with one. Been that way for decades

[dixiegrrrrl]

15. Storm surge and flooding is another result of the storm, which produces monsoon like rains.

Might could be you have a pretty solid house, but the storm surge brings the water into the house.
Fla. is low lying, storm surge is predicted to be very high.

Hurricane Ivan in 2004 hit Ala. head on, with this effect:

Two five-story condominium buildings were undermined to the point of collapse by Ivan's storm surge of 14 feet (4.3 m).
Both were made of steel-reinforced concrete. Debris gathered in piles along the storm tide, exacerbating the damage when the floodwaters crashed into homes sitting on pilings.[

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Ivan#Alabama
And that was just the coastal damage, it went inland and damaged our town, 100 miles from the Gulf. Took 3 weeks to get power back.
Living in hot humid weather without power is horrible, and deadly for some.

I don't know of any houses built to take the forces of 100 mph winds battering on them for hours, then coming from the opposite side for more hours of battering.

When people say something can withstand 90 mph winds, they are talking a blast of straight line wind for a few minutes, not hours and hours, which hurricanes produce.

all talk about impending hurricanes falls into 2 groups: those who talk in theory, and those who talk with experience.

[beachbum bob]

24. florida house had stringent building codes for years then to cheapen construction and speed

they lessen the requirements and allow cheaper methods...then something like Hurricane Andrew destroys thousands of homes and buildings that were built to the cheapened codes...and the insurance (and lenders) industry forced florida back to more stringent requirements.

Buildings and homes are built ALL THE TIME to withstand 100+ winds....in florida in the 1960's when we had a house built in Ft Lauderdale, the house was built like a concrete block house and we actually survived a direct hit by a tornado spawned by a tropical storm that hit us in 1968. A direct hit. Our house roof was a concrete roof tied to the wall system with 1/2' rebars. My dad was smart and put all our storm awnings down the night the tornado hit us. We heard the hit and next moring 16 homes around us that were partially constructed were gone, they had no roof system on the walls and tornado simply topped the walls over.

[dixiegrrrrl]

25. There are expensive homes on a sand spit out of Mobile

Dauphin Island..a sand spit...fairly big, 17 miles long.
sand spits...they MOVE by wave/tide action building at one point, erasing at another part, as Nature intended.
they slow bad storms/hurricanes, as you probably know.

So people built big houses on them. Plopped them right down on the sand. County built a road to get to it.
Hurricane comes along, flattens the houses, insurance pays to have them re-built, we get to pay higher premiums to subsidize that expense.
City/county spends a fortune hauling sand in to replace what was washed away.

then Katrina hit. Cut the Island in half, right in the middle, road gone, now an inlet.
Most houses gone or ruined for good.

The homeowners DEMANDED that the county rebuilt the Island, no matter how much sand it would take.
Demanded insurance re-build, but this time around the insurance companies fought them.
after Katrina, some big insurance companies simply refused to even operate in the state.

Now I hear there is re-building going on again.

[beachbum bob]

29. rules should be simple, home owner assumes all risk when building in a flood zone

taxpayers should not subsidize poor house locations decisions. Make people pay the actual cost for insuring and stupid decisions to build in flood zones would stop


no way do I want my tax dollars subsidizing beach front home rebuilding

[drray23]

2. I did a quick estimate in another thread using numbers that traffic engineers use. reposting here:

http://www.mikeontraffic.com/numbers-every-traffic-engineer-should-know/


So, in the best of cases they estimate 1900 per lane and per hour. So, reversing a 3 lane gives you 6×1900 which is slighly less than 12000 vehicles per hour. If you optimistically assume 4 ppls per vehicle you end up with moving roughly 50k/hour at best.

So 6 million people would take 6 days or so...

Not possible. As soon as there is one accident, traffic clogs.. Not to mention that many of the assumptions I made are very optimistic (everybody has access to a vehicle and pack 4 to a car, they can get gas, they can manage to get on that highway using secondary roads, etc.. )

Mass evacuation is probably only possible if we had a good train system or things like that. Mass transportation instead of private cars.

More realistic is a solid plan for targeted evacs ( like the keys) where you deal with much smaller numbers.

[dixiegrrrrl]

9. Tallahassee reported no gas as of yesterday

It is on the route west out of Fla.
Mostly likely has gotten some gas in at some point, but maybe not.

Fla. officals in some areas announced gas shortage, which created ...gas shortage elsewhere.

[csziggy]

26. There were stations with gas last night

Yesterday friends lent us their old generator, but there were no gas cans - theirs had been melted in our barn fire in July and there were none to be found in any store in Tallahassee. We dug around in our other storage building and found two old metal diesel cans that are still in good condition. Last night my husband drove in and filled those.

If we need the generator and use all that gas, we can siphon gas out of our Suburban (40 gallon tank) to use. We may only run the generator part time to keep the freezer cold. It's packed full of food, ice and jugs of water (now frozen) so it will stay cold enough to be safe without power for at least two days.

So long as people in Tallahassee look for gas away from the interstate, they should be able to find some.

[msongs]

3. evacuate to where exactly? nt

[Warpy]

4. You can't even get everybody out of Miami

Even if they've got a car in the family and they all cram into it, they drive for 8 hours and they're still in Florida, flat and swampy Florida. The best you can do in a thing like this is try to cram as many people as possible into substantial buildings inland.

Even if the storm doesn't strengthen significantly once it leaves Cuba and stays a 3 or so, this is going to suck and some people are likely to die. We hope they're all Darwin candidates, but that is not often the case. Mostly, they're people who think cinder block walls will save them and don't realize the roof isn't attached all that well. They didn't go anywhere because the car was low on gas and traffic was gridlocked by the time they realized the storm was headed their way.

I just hope they got everybody out of South Beach. They flood during lunar high tides on sunny days.

[TexasBushwhacker]

5. Yeah. I'd rather ride out the storm in my home than in my car

Now they're saying it's more like to hit Tampa.

[Scurrilous]

7. Yup.

You don't go up, you go in. And then hunker down.

[dixiegrrrrl]

11. And the gridlock gives you Hurr. Rita scenario

where Houston did try to evacuate and 100 people died trapped on the roads in gridlock.

In truth, those who leave may not have anything to come back to
and those who stay and survive may not have anything left either.

There are few positive outcomes in a hurricane this big.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

6. Thanks to all of you for your replies.

I do want to stress that I posted this thread just as a thought exercise, not an attempt to assess how best to evacuate an entire state.

And thanks especially to drray23 for her estimate.

I appreciate that there are many obstacles in the way of an orderly mass evacuation, but I just wanted to get a sense of how long it might take, given optimal conditions.

[cwydro]

10. Where are 20 million people going to go?

No way no how.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

16. Yes, I know.

Notice I treated this as a hypothetical, not reality.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

12. Non-Floridians don't necessarily understand that not everyone is situated the same.

People on the coasts and in flood zones as well as people with wood frame homes and mobile homes should definitely consider leaving those homes. Whether that means out of state or simply to a stronger and safer structure is up to them.

However if you are in an concrete block building with shutters and it's not in a flood zone it might be the best choice to stay.

[William769]

18. Not all can evacuate for different reasons.

Because not all evacuate, not all is lost for them. Some people have the ability to ride out the storm where they are. Some people who choose not to evacuate because of financial reasons, again all is not lost. Shelters are open when all the shelters have filled as they did today, they open more shelters.

I live in Bonita. I now realize I should have evacuated days ago (but there's no reason to cry over spilt milk. I am not going to a shelter but I do have friends that live inland that are not in a storm surge area and will be riding out the storm with them.

People with no vehicles are being moved to shelters with school busses. we have telephone numbers for people to call that if they need help to get to a shelter, they will be helped.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is this, we don't need arm chair quarterbacks. unless you are on the ground here seeing first hand on what is going on, you are only adding to the problem.

With that said enjoy the rest of your day.

[drray23]

19. Apparently reading comprehension is not what it used to be.

I dont see the OP advocating for or against evacuations. He was interested at the mechanical aspect of it. That is, would it even be physically possible given road carrying capacities and other constraints.

Never mind that most replies are about how non floridians know nothing and should not suggest evacuating (which the OP did not).

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

21. Thank you.

I've been getting a bit frustrated that some responders think I'm advocating a full evacuation of the state.

And thank you once more for doing the research I couldn't figure out how to do.

[Awsi Dooger]

20. I drove from Miami to Orlando last night on the turnpike

Absolutely no traffic at all. I never would have known anything was abnormal.

Of course, I left at 12:30 AM. That was intentional. I know how Americans operate. They don't like those hours even during emergency. I am a 3 AM guy, based on 25 years in Las Vegas. There aren't many 3 AM types. That's why I had to laugh at the threads here and elsewhere a few days ago insisting that departure had to be no later than Wednesday. Sorry, that ignores situational reality. The roads are not jammed in the wee hours. Fortunately I realized my original intention to use the smaller road 27 was unnecessary.

The only unusual thing I noted on the turnpike was immediately after entering at Bird Road in Miami. There were several police cars with lights flashing heading south at rapid speed while escorting 5 or 6 empty busses. Obviously headed toward the Keys to aid evacuation efforts.

Now that I'm in Orlando I have been criticized twice today by my aunt the Republican. She says I should have listened to her and stayed in Miami, since now I might catch more of Irma in Orlando than they'll experience in Miami. Who cares? I made the decision that was most sensible at the time. I prefer big picture focus and not flailing overreaction to the latest result, or apparent result in this case.

I have an older home 8 miles inland in Miami that was smack in the projected eye wall in the late going. I'll evacuate every time under those circumstances and never second guess. I don't want to lose a bet and consequently never have opportunity to lose another one.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

22. I like to think that if I lived in Florida

or any other state that is subject to hurricanes, that I'd evacuate readily.

And your decision, for what my opinion is worth, was the right one given the information you had at the time.

[RobinA]

30. Your Mature Approach

is refreshing. Too many people, and I've fallen victim to this as well, feel like if they take precautions, whether for a hurricane, blizzard, whatever, and nothing happens they have been made a fool of. So they (we) walk a thin, anxiety-producing line of trying to second guess weather and get it exactly right. We feel great when catastrophe doesn't materialize if we did nothing because we somehow scored with our great intuition. One day later, if nothing happens, who knows or cares who "guessed right" or who overprepared. Whereas if something does happen, one day later the unprepared are floundering and the prepared are in the best possible shape to restore normalcy. If you take into consideration the misery quotient, it just seems that reasonable preparation is the odds on way to go.

[crazycatlady]

27. Not a Fl expert by any means

(Been there as a kid, don't see a reason for me to return. I prefer cold climates.

When evacuating a state like FL, there's only one way out. Many of the other states, you can go in several directions.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

28. And that really is the problem.

Not only is there only one way out, but looking at Google Maps there just don't seem to be very many secondary roads.

And I'm with you about preferring cold climates. I'm also not fond of humidity and bugs. So I live in Santa Fe.