Originally Posted By: Tjin
Originally Posted By: hikermor
Here are questions to ponder at some time when the definitive data are available:

What was the fatality/injury rate among those who elected to stay on the keys during Irma? How does that compare with those who evacuated?

So far, I have not seen anything about large numbers of fatalities among those who remained, nor, for that matter, anything about incidents among the evacuees. Indeed, the number of fatalities (somewhere in the mid-50s) seems quite low considering the population at risk in this storm.

Presumably one would leave because remaining would expose one to a significant chance of dying. If that is not the case, there is a significant advantage to sheltering in place - nothing works like home field advantage...



This is always hard to say as the group that stays has a very different make up than those who choose to leave. So you cannot compare the different groups directly.



As a starting point, you can measure the outcomes of these decisions, roughly, to be sure, since the figures will be somewhat inexact. I agree with you completely that there is more to the analysis than just that gross figure - but it is a starting point.

I would hope that procedures followed during Harvey and Irma will be studied carefully and will provide useful guidance for future disasters affecting very large populations. Certainly we would all bet a higher grade for these recent hurricanes than for Katrina and Ike...
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