If you want the die hards to evacuate the best measure is to hand out
air and water tight and lockable safes that can take the DVD and and
other valuables. They need to be able to take the stuff with them or
bolt the safe to the structure of the house. Those that will not leave
New Orleans today are those that simply don't trust the government when
it tells them that it can secure their house.
Some are rent control tenets who know that if they leave the owner will
take the opportunity to evict them and the poor tenet knows he can't
raise another bond.
Some who refuse to leave are people that don't want to be counted.
People with arrest warrants out for them. They know that they'll be
asked too many questions in the evacuees center.
I worked in such a facility during the Canberra Fires disaster, we lost
three suburbs to a bush firestorm. One mess we had to deal with was a
gentleman who refused to go into the center to be assessed, he also
clearly needed first aid. Why did he refuse? He was on a court order
never to go near his ex wife and she was in the building, we had to fix
him up in the car park. We had one other refugee who was under 'house
arrest' and faced jail if he left home without seeking prier permission.
A month later some idiot lawyer tried to throw this person in jail for
evacuating! The judge nearly put the state prosecutor in jail for gross
stupidity.
When we finished sorting though the mess of several thousand homeless
evacuees we found our selves stuck with several people and one whole
family; they had been homeless before the fires. One, a pyromaniac, was
banned from every public and private housing agency in the country.
Three guesses why.
Jed Rothwell wrote:
An interesting observation about human psychology:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/06/opinion/06tierney.html
QUOTE:
[Jim] Judkins is one of the officials in charge of evacuating the
Hampton Roads region around Newport News, Va. . . .
Instead of relying on a "Good Samaritan" policy -- the fantasy in New
Orleans that everyone would take care of the neighbors -- the Virginia
rescue workers go door to door [before a storm]. If people resist the
plea to leave, Mr. Judkins told The Daily Press in Newport News,
rescue workers give them Magic Markers and ask them to write their
Social Security numbers on their body parts so they can be identified.
"It's cold, but it's effective," Mr. Judkins explained.
END QUOTE
My daughter told me that in Ireland in the old days, fishermen's wives
used to knit them sweaters with unique and beautiful unique patterns
for each clan and family. These are popular with tourists today. They
did this so that when a body washed ashore they would recognize who it
was by the sweater. (Perhaps they still do this?)
Colorful Japanese kokeshi dolls are also popular with the tourists,
both Japanese and American. I doubt many tourists know how they
originated. They were memorials to children killed by infanticide and
abortion.
Past tragedy and misery are reborn as today's theme parks. Someone in
Virginia recently started a weekend retreat for people who want to
reenact Vietnam war battles, the way people reenact Civil War battles.
I recall as a child I rode one of these amusement park rides someplace
like Disneyland which swerved through a reenactment of the 1906 San
Francisco earthquake. In 50 years amusement parks will feature
airplanes crashing into the World Trade Center and the flooding of New
Orleans.
- Jed
