People Won’t Evacuate If They Have Nowhere To Go

The following was in a recent New York Times article about the Israeli assault on Gaza— 

The Israeli Army also dropped thousands of leaflets into some residential districts warning inhabitants to evacuate their homes. Because of “the activity of terrorist groups,” the leaflets said in Arabic, the army “is obliged to respond quickly and work from inside your residential area.” Many residents of one apartment block in Gaza City said they had nowhere else to go and would stay in their homes.”

This made me think about all the people who did not evacuate New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina or Galveston before Hurricane Ike. It was clear from news reports that many who stayed behind were very poor. 

If folks don’t feel they have a better option but to stay and take their chances, they will quite possibly not evacuate when troubl is on the way. I think this is one of those cases where you have to be in the other person’s shoes to fully understand.

Though it is certainly easy, as I heard many times here in Houston after Hurricane Ike, to sit high and dry and criticize others. All I can say in reply is that if people are telling you that they are not going to get out of the way of bombs and hurricanes, I bet they have a good enough reason. At least in the context of their lives and their experiences in life, they have a good enough reason.