If you wan to know how to do hurricane preparations right you might want to look at what Cuba does. They are a poor nation but consistently the fare better, considering the strength and duration of the storms that hit, than we do.

Their system is national, provincial and community based. The national organization provides information on best practices, guidelines and organization. The provincial governments provide coordination and enforce standards.

The majority of the job gets done at the community level. Every man, woman and child is assigned a place in a shelter. Every block has an organizer that makes it their business to make sure that every person gets whatever assistance is needed to get them to the shelter and take care of them there.

The combination of neighborhood shelters numerous and large enough to hold everyone in the neighborhood and a community that actively makes sure everyone is covered and safe has gone a long way to make Cuba a model of safety during a hurricane.

It is a shame that while the poor nation of Cuba had very few casualties during Katrina our rich nation was in complete disarray. Cuba took care of its own while America stood by and watched people drown on national TV.

Presumably we are doing better now. But the question remains: Why can't we do as well as the impoverished nation of Cuba?

Many people who have studied such situations have stated that the first problem with our response is that we depend on evacuation. Cuba, partly because they are a small nation and so have no place to flee to, selected to have those not in a storm surge area shelter in local shelters.

The USA, in its infinite wisdom, has chosen to focus on mass evacuation. An impossibility when one looks at large population centers which are forced to try to get their populations through transportation choke points. The classic example of this is Key West. Where a complete evacuation is a mathematical impossibility in less than a week. And this assumes no cars break down on the one highway out.

Shelter in place makes a lot of sense. Not only when a hurricane threatens but in many other cases. A case of a pandemic or a radiological disaster, accidental or on purpose, are much better handled if everyone shelters in place until the problem can be surveyed and countermeasures taken. Sheltering in place buy everyone time.

Art_in_FL:

Florida does encourage people to evacuate locally to higher ground ( which isn't as scarce as you might think ). You can also evacuate vertically. Some hazards you can go up in a building, others you can go down.