Everyone’s situation is different. Your Sister’s is an especially difficult case. She should raise this issue with her fellow staff. Since Medical Personnel and First Responders have unique needs, the hospital should devise a plan wherein the staff would know who’s required to be on duty and for how long. IF they are going to require your Sister to hang around until it’s too late to evacuate, they need to arrange some type of evacuation – especially given that your Sister and her co-workers are personnel with crucial skills.
Let’s hope that all Hospitals, Cities, Schools, etc. learn from both Katrina & Rita and immediately start brainstorming some of these problems.

I certainly don't want to sound callous about this, but is your sister a slave? Last time I checked back home, people still had the right to decide what to do with their lives in such a situation. I mean, did someone hold a gun to her head and say "Stay or Die"?

I am here in Baghdad because I chose to be, and I stay here because every day I wake up and choose to stay. There are obviously repercussions I will face if I leave before my assignment is done, but I gotta think it's small potatoes compared to being DEAD.

I commend your sister for having the guts to stay. Unless there was something very special about her situation, realize that she took the risk of her own volition, just as I do, and is responsible for that decision, just as I am for mine.

Personally, I would not consider it a wise move to stay and work for an employer who has such little concern for my welfare as to expect me to take unwarranted risks due to their lack of adequate planning. I gotta think with her skills, she would have no problem finding gainful employment elsewhere in short order. By staying to take care of critical needs, she mitigated her employer's obvious incompetence and inconsideration. I am certain that her employer is being/has been greatly compensated because of her sacrifice. Did they pass any of this windfall on to her for her devotion to duty? I would certainly be surprised if they did.

No, no, I meant that she didn't have the flexibility that non-MDs might have had to say "sorry, taking a day off to evacuate early" -- not that UTMB was unduly delaying staff or patient evacs, or that it was unprepared. (Besides, medical folk tend to have a little more dedication to the job than oh, say, a lawyer like me whose career doesn't normally involve life-or-death situations. I'm constantly impressed by the dedication to helping others that people like Polak187 and paramedicpete demonstrate.) And she decided NOT to take the risk of riding out the storm -- the dog played a part in that decision, as did the fact that her house is located on a canal -- which is why she ended up in that 100-mile-long traffic jam that I was ranting about.

By the way, randyo, I asked her about Route 3005, and she said it tends to flood during even run-of-the-mill rainstorms, since the western part of Galveston Island isn't behind the seawall and wasn't built-up after the 1900 hurricane. So driving those 40 miles to Freeport on a flood-prone 2-lane road where everyone else is trying to go the other way is probably not a viable option.

Every road looks good on a map <img src="/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

I want Google maps to update in real time. Then you really could tell which roads were best. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Again, I don't want to sound overly critical or insulting here, but I want to be clear on this point. What flexibility did she not have as an MD that others apparently had? Unless someone was forcing her to stay, it was still a decision she made to stay in harm's way when the prudent decision at the time was to leave early. I can understand and appreciate her dedication to patients in need, but I have to believe she took even greater risk trying to vacate town at such a late and obviously hopeless hour. She wouldn't have needed to stay at her place necessarily, just find a more suitable shelter and take her dog with her (certainly more problematic, but not impossible to find such a place). Better than being stranded on a roadside while the storm hits I gotta think.

With the limited information I have about your sister and her situation at the time, I would conclude she was very lucky that her decisions didn't place her in great peril. It would most certainly have been a tragic loss had she perished in the storm trying to flee as she did, and all the people who's lives she will some day save would then perhaps never receive the care she will still be able to provide.

I am sure MDs do feel a greater sense of responsibility to their clients than most professionals would. That should not diminish their capacity for making reasonable decisions about their own welfare.

Please convey my gratitude to your sister for her sacrifices. It is people like her that give us hope that humanity is worth the effort.