Poverty. The answer is always poverty. Evacuation is not free and never has been.

Currently sitting in the Tampa Bay area while a category 5+ hurricane comes barreling at me. I’m in flood zone D next to E so I shouldn’t have any issues there. In a building that is solid brick/cinderblock construction, built like a bunker. Don’t worry about me. I got water, food, and enough fat to get me through the winter as they say.

The one thing I don’t have is the hundreds or thousands of dollars it would take to drive 2+ states away and get a hotel for a week. I simply don’t have it. Then you have all these people in places like Missouri or Montana posting this question about why people would not evacuate. We don’t have the goddamn money. It’s not hubris. We SHOULD evacuate. I don’t see any of the people saying this offering up a spot on their couch. We should always evacuate… somewhere other than the house of the person who thinks we should, apparently.

  • hypercracker@hexbear.netEnglish
    60·
    2 months ago

    Yeah people have this idea that the government actually does jack shit except for being like “hey leave the area or you’re gonna die, sucks to be you lol” maybe they think they’re working to set up thousands of people in stadiums or whatever, and sometimes that does happen, but overwhelmingly it’s just telling people to spend over a months’ rent to stay at a hotel with surge pricing.

    • FlakesBongler [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      53·
      2 months ago

      I literally had an argument with someone who thought that they send in buses and helicopters to take people out of their homes

      I was like “Maybe in other countries, but here, you’re lucky if the cops don’t shoot at you and say you were a looter”

          • came_apart_at_Kmart [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
            38·
            2 months ago

            they do it in Cuba. there’s a whole organized civil service that is called up for extreme weather to help people, families, those with disabilities, the elderly, to evacuate with their necessities, medications, and pets into secured housing locations when the order is given. there is no “report to work anyway” going on except emergency services and community organization.

            Jacobin did an article on it some years ago. should be easy to find.

            Cuba has it worked out despite being very much isolated and forcibly kept impoverished in the same area as hurricanes bring destruction, it is rare as hell for someone to die there due to a hurricane… unlike every western allied nation and state in the region, where people get killed just about every time, sometimes many people.

            the statistics are and should be one of the most obvious embarrassments and failures of capitalist ideology, but nobody in the US learns about any of this. ever.

            found it: https://jacobin.com/2017/08/hurricane-harvey-cuba-disaster-plan

            • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
              20·
              2 months ago

              If I understand it every single person in the country has a designated shelter and orders on what they’re supposed to do, who they help, and so forth for disasters. It’s unbelievable, it could never happen in the us.

              Makes me think of the Soviet Metros. The Moscow Metro was built far, far deeper and far larger than it needed to be, partially because it was built to be beautiful because useful things should be beautiful, but also so it could accomodate enormous numbers of people if the Americans attacked. The Soviets sat down and said “how can we build enough shelters for everyone?” And then did their best.

              America never built large scale public shelters partially because the government thought it was too communist and partially because they figured the cities were acceptable casualties and the us-foreign-policy people who lived there us-foreign-policy were acceptable losses.

              • came_apart_at_Kmart [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
                8·
                2 months ago

                yeah, it’s pretty clear they could give a fuck about any of us. however, i have no doubt there is enough space for the wealthy and powerful via “continuity of government” infrastructure which is all, of course, highly classified from all us dumbass citizens because why would we need to know where to go during a disaster? after a big enough mass casualty event, they would just relax, reshape, and contract border and naturalization policy at whatever rate wouldn’t overwhelm the containment and fragmentation of class consciousness.

      • SorosFootSoldier [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        25·
        2 months ago

        I literally had an argument with someone who thought that they send in buses and helicopters to take people out of their homes

        That would require the government to help poor people and helping poor people is communism, sweetie.

      • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        2·
        2 months ago

        They do. In Florida right now they have free busses to remove people and free storm shelters set up to take them to. Even special needs/ health accommodations.

    • SorosFootSoldier [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      23·
      2 months ago

      yeonmi-park And in bad country the poor working class can’t afford to evacuate so they die in the storm. The survivors go out to find food and water, because the government can’t provide because they wasted all the federal funds on bombing Palestine, and they get shot by a navy seal sniper with PTSD.