Hurricane Milton was just days away from making landfall in Tampa when the Florida city’s mayor, Jane Castor, issued a grim warning. “If you choose to stay, you are going to die,” he told residents in evacuation zones on October 7. About 5.5 million people are subject to the order to leave in Florida.
Anatomy of a giant hurricane: How Milton reached Category 5 so quickly and when it will make landfall in Florida
But not everyone can leave home to avoid the hurricane. According to Cara Cuite, an associate professor in the Department of Human Ecology at Rutgers University, two reasons usually explain why people do not flee their homes during weather crises and despite warnings from authorities.
On the one hand there are people who consider the risks exaggerated or feel out of danger. On the other hand, those who cannot do so due to their situation or structural conditions. In the case of Hurricane Milton, which reached Tampa Bay on Wednesday night, the first group is probably quite small, explains Cuite, referring to the unequivocal messages from Castor and other authorities about the dire consequences of staying. To understand the second group, these are some of the possible reasons:
1. The cost of travel
The US Federal Reserve estimated in 2023 that almost 40% of Americans could not afford emergency expenses of $400 in cash. According to a 2021 study, people who evacuated the Texas coastal area during Hurricane Harvey spent an average of $1,200 during the emergency, an amount that was even higher for those who had to spend the night in hotels.
Residents who use their car in evacuation, assuming the vehicle is in working condition, need to pay for gas, hotel, food and any other pressing needs. If the evacuation is by plane, the cost of the ticket will have to be added to the aforementioned expenses, assuming they can get to the airport. After accusations against airlines for abusing prices just as people were trying to flee Florida, some companies have come out to say that they have put a cap on their prices.
“Any socioeconomic inequality that exists on a day-to-day basis will be accentuated during a catastrophe,” says Cierra Chenier, a New Orleans historian and writer. “The most vulnerable communities are always the ones that suffer the most.”
Preparing for the arrival of Hurricane Milton, Florida health authorities deployed almost 600 emergency vehicles to assist in the evacuation. The Florida Division of Emergency Management is also offering free evacuation buses to shelters.
Federal Emergency Management Agency [Fema, por sus siglas en inglés] is assisting with money the victims of Category 4 Hurricane Helene, which on September 27 claimed the lives of more than 225 people in the states of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. But help may not arrive in time for everyone who needs it. Or that it never arrives.
2. Nowhere to go
Many of the shelters, hotels and potential rentals for Florida people fleeing Hurricane Milton are already full due to Hurricane Helene.
As Stacy Willet, professor of Emergency Management and Homeland Security at the University of Akron, explains, the lack of anticipation of places to go can keep people from leaving. “Evacuation by invitation is one of the best ways to get people to leave,” he says. “If they have a place to go, if they know they have a house in a safe area, sometimes it is enough to know that that place exists and that it is offered to the person in a disaster zone so that people can move sooner.”
But there are also people forced to look for accommodation who lack that network of friends or family. If shelters within reasonable distances are overcrowded, and hotels have no free rooms, these people have to travel excessive distances or stay and try to ride out the storm.
3. Disability
During an evacuation, the specific needs of people with an illness or disability may not be apparent to people without disabilities. But the truth is that disability and illness can be reasons for people not to leave home. Even more difficult if what they need is to travel.
“It’s very difficult if you have a disability and you don’t have an accessible place to evacuate to, or you don’t have a vehicle,” Cuite says. “You have to find a transportation aid that fits, for example, a wheelchair or whatever you need due to your disability; These things can get complicated especially when you are part of multiple categories.”
4. Pets
Some shelters do not allow pets and those that do may set a maximum number or allow only certain types of animals. Hence, many people choose to stay and not evacuate to take care of them.
“People sometimes stay to protect their home or to protect animals they can’t take with them,” Cuite says. “In more rural areas, they may not be pets but farm animals; “People feel the responsibility of staying to take care of the things and the animals in their care.”
5. The fear of not being able to return
The Louisiana evacuation before Hurricane Katrina involved an estimated 1.5 million people. Many of them could not return. For some, and especially those who have been displaced before due to natural disasters, the fear of leaving and not being able to return, or of returning to nothing, is reason enough to try to survive the hurricane without leaving the place.
“It’s great that there are busloads to get people out quickly, but who knows how those people will cope with being separated from their families, which we know happens, how long are they going to be gone?” says Chenier. “We don’t know what the effect of these storms will be, what are the measures to ensure that people maintain the right to their home and to return?”
Translation by Francisco de Zárate.
