Just out of curiosity, Does anybody have an idea on how many people are forced out of their homes or businesses by floods, wildfires, refineries blowing up, hurricanes,... etc, etc, etc?
Weekly, monthly, yearly?

Either for your country in total or by state or province.
Just whatever you know, or even a guess.
Just please let me know if you have a source or if it really is just a guess.

I don't have numbers I just know a LOT of people from California are forced out of their homes every year due to wild fires. Non-Mandatory while the fire is not on them, and then when it becomes obvious the fire is heading toward their neighborhood/homes they have mandatory evacuations.

I'm in one of those areas. The year before last we had a non-mandatory evacuation. We didn't leave although I had my truck packed and ready even before we got to that stage. Some of the neighbors left, others stayed. Neighborhood was very quiet for a few days. Just a few miles north the evac was mandatory.

The last large scale evacuation I can remember was in 1993 in the City of Perth (about 20 miles away) mainly due to winter flooding mostly effecting the north and south inch area in the centre of the city.



Looking toward the South Inch from the King James IV golf course on Moncrieffe Island



The flooded area affected about 2500 homes. The flood defences for Perth were then completed in 2001.

I don't have a clue as to the numbers you are asking for, but on another note, my DW and I got into a semi-interesting conversation.

On the NE corner of the intersection of Interstates 49 and 10 at Lafayette, La, there is a large motel that is now closed. This property is now surrounded by a Hurricane fence. According to the local newspaper (The Lafayette Advertiser), Homeless people took up residence after it had closed down, and trashed the place. Now the city wants it razed.

Our question is: Why can't FEMA purchase/take over such places, renovate them, provide a security and maintenance staff, and have them "activate" such facilities (with Salvation Army, Red Cross, other local groups, etc) when a disaster has forced people to be evacuated.

This would have been very useful during Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Ike, etc. This could also have been used when a local major HazMat Incident occurred 2 years ago.

The only requirements I think that would be required are:
1) Proof of permanent residency is within the affected area(s),
2) All persons checked in/provided a room, are fully responsible for any and all damages to the room they have been issued.
3) A non-negotiable time limit should be established when such an Emergency Relocation Center is "activated".

Anyways, that's my 2 cents worth.

Wildman, I don't know anything about the motel you're talking about, but the reason it hasn't been taken over, restored, converted to long term shelter, staffed with a skeleton staff etc etc, may be that the effort probably doesn't pencil out - most shelter situations are short term, and there are plenty of places that can be pressed into duty as short term shelter spaces. Renovating and keeping a space active as an available space sounds good, until you compare it to sheltering folks in churches and community centers, which can be done for marginal costs.

Costs of renovation after trashing can be prohibitive - squatters might not just have abused the electric, sewage and water systems, but have rendered them unusable, requiring costly replacement. With the price of copper, who knows what has been removed from the motel's systems?

Three reasons:

-No one wants to pay for a hard site with structure that "might" be used and sits idle for some length of time.
-No one wants to run for reelection after having voted for a "FEMA relocation camp" with the all the tin foil hattery that would be associated with it.
-No one wants to let a hard site sit idle, so they'd turn it into a halfway house or a homeless shelter, so when the time comes, it is going to be be full (and probably trashed).

I too, have always followed the same line of reasoning that you've brought up, until the Katrina/Rita scenario.

I don't know if people from those disasters are still staying in motels (I doubt it) but there were people/families being housed in local motels for at least a year. The same is true of motels and apartments in Houston and other large cities across the country.

I wonder how much damage FEMA ended up paying for (holes in doors and walls) in FEMA contracted motel rooms. I remember hearing one story of a motel owner who wanted these "FEMA tenants" to be moved out by FEMA because of the damages that they were doing to the rooms. FEMA refused (so the story goes), so the owner closed his motel, forcing the "FEMA tenants" to leave.

How much ($$$$$) did the Federal Gov't pay out in damages to thoses who sued over the "excess formaldehyde" fumes in the campers/mobile homes that refugees were housed in?

I'm saying that it may actually be worth the expense of having 1 or 2 such facilities for every 3 or 4 state area.

The only close viable solution I see is to create spare capacity in cities that support convention centers. Orlando, for example, has had more than it's share of abandoned hotels and dormitories. Possibly, if those structures are "held" by the State while being put up for sale, they can be prevented from becoming completely run-down.

To make something like this work, there would have to be spare room inventory. Either using existing rooms or keeping dis-used locations "warm".

Using existing rooms and capping capacity at say, 80% of available rooms, could provide an emergency buffer. I think most hotels and motels are not usually 100% full, so the room rates do cover a good portion of the operating expenses. However, someone will have to pay for that loss of revenue if the building reaches 80% capacity, since the other 20% will not be available for rental. Supply and Demand says that when there are nearly no rooms available, the prices can climb dramatically. That kind of one-of-a-kind pricing helps keep the profits above break-even.

Another issue here is what to do with if you need more room. You can cancel conventions and use the rest of the rooms, however, you'll lose incoming revenue. Business will go elsewhere, possibly permanently.

The other issue here is the retrofitting or hardening of the structures themselves. Since most likely they'll be needed for risks local to the area, they need to be protected from regional disasters. That adds more costs.

What do about staff? I can see a few unions having issues with people being "hired" to "run" a hotel during an emergency. Who would you use? CERT?

I can expand if anyone is interested, but I've had an idea for a while for that could shift some of this burden of disaster volunteers back to the private sector, but not resulting in a huge impact.