What the hell were they thinking?
You often hear the question ‘What the hell were they thinking’ when it comes to people who don’t evacuate during hurricanes. In many cases, there is a clearly understandable reason for this. Sometimes it has to do with lack of money, lack of transportation, or the like. Sometimes, people are still left wondering–especially when someone says they didn’t want to leave their property. In many of these cases, however, I can understand fully well why they don’t.
The standard operating procedure for many governments when something like this happens is to declare a “mandatory” evacuation. In many cases, this makes perfect sense. I know that if a hurricane was barreling down toward where I live (which, on rare occasions, actually does happen here), there is a good chance I’d give thought about moving further inland if it hit the upper end of the rating scale. The problem, however, comes in after the hurricane passes and those who evacuated try to get back to their property and are stopped by the government from doing so.
The simple fact of the matter is that if you never leave your property, the government can’t deny you the right to your personal property. If you never leave, you don’t have to wait for the government to give the all clear for you to go back and pick up the pieces that are left and begin rebuilding. You’re already there and have full access (or as full as Mother Nature allowed you) to your property.
I can hear any number of people out there claiming that this puts extra danger on the part of the emergency response teams and that it’s not fair to them for people to remain and force the responders into situations they would not normally have to face. On that point, I agree. If you’re going to stay behind when the government has issued a “mandantory” evacuation, then you should be left to stew in your own juices in whatever way you choose. You should not be able to put other people in danger for your personal choices.
Since I dislike it when people complain about something and then don’t offer a viable option to fix it, here is what I feel should be done:
- The government should not longer issue mandatory evacuations, but rather recommended evacuations (which, in the end, is what it amounts to right now)
- As part of these evacuation recommendation, the government should make it clear that emergency services will not be available until the government deems it safe for normal operations.
- Anyone opting to stay behind will do so with the understanding that they are on their own until the government resumes normal operation.
Harsh? Maybe a little. But then so is putting emergency personnel into situations that endanger them outside of the scope of their job descriptions. Unfortunately, there are two things that will defeat this idea.
- There are far too many people in this country who want mommy and daddy government to take care of them no matter the consequences of their decisions.
- These people, by and large, pay taxes that pay for these services.
For the first of those two things, I don’t have a solution. It’s taken many years for the country to get to that point, and it’s going to take many years to get out of it–if we can. For the second, it’s simply a disclaimer matter. Taxes cover everyday operations of things. For exceptional situations, you generally have to pay extra. Given this, you have two options:
- Send a bill to the people for the price of the services, including “combat” pay for the responders who volunteer to go in.
- Set up an “insurance” program where you can pay a premium to avoid getting that bill after things are done.
However much I’d like to see something done in this vein, I simply don’t see it happening anytime soon. The idea of people being fully responsible for their actions and decisions has gone out of vogue and unlike some of the bad ’80s fashions that are coming back now, I don’t see this cycling back around as a major movement in the near future.