Not a US citizen and don't know enough about geography, but even though I'm a very avid anti-car person, many people do depend on cars there given that the US is that big. Plus in a situation like this where you'd ideally want to evac as quickly as possible, I do quite get that struggle.
Do let me know if I'm missing something here though
I think the point is that with a robust high speed rail infrastructure and an appropriate mergency response to multiply trains on the escape routes, a lot fewer people would die because it would be considerably more efficient.
I'm not sure I buy it as people tend to evacuate with large belongings that fit in cars but wouldn't necessarily fit in trains, though I suppose freight trains could also move them efficiently.
You literally just need normal rail infrastructure.
Fuck all talks about high speed rail in the US, you don't even have normal rail. How do you expect people to stop using their cars if all you will have is rail that ONLY connects metropolises?
Seriously, high speed rail is a prestige project for the most part. It's nearly useless without a solid local rail infrastructure foundation. If you have to travel 60 miles to the nearest train station via car you might as well drive to your destination fully.
There's a video on Youtube by this bloke who calls himself Bald and Bankrupt, where he happened to be in Kyiv on the day the Russians invaded the city so they evacuated, and they just left by train. It was packed wall to wall, obviously, but very feasible.
Rail doesn't get congested the same way highways do and nothing in your house is worth more than your life when evacuating. If you want to keep certain belongings safe, maybe it is best to transport them away before hurricane season comes.
Hell even a well serperated bus lane and lots of buses could evacuate more people than cars.
Life > belongings.
We purposefully neglected viable alternatives because of the power of the auto industry here. Florida especially, since it has extremely limited space for development, should've spent its energy on rail rather than car infrastructure.
Brightline has entered the chat but it is on the right side of the state
Short-term, missing fuel in the US is a humanitarian issue.
Long-term, there's much unused leverage to prevent or circumvent or lessen crisis mobility shortages.
America is car dependent because that's how the infrastructure was build up, not because of its size. Like, the highways are just as long as the train lines would be.
Do let me know if I’m missing something here though
Yes: missing car fuel and road space
Ay gotem
Florida has a population density greater than France (400per sqmi vs 300 per sqmi for France) so there is zero excuse for any east coast state to be this car dependent. Florida could have easily built denser communities connected by public transit allowing them to preserve more of their wetlands to greatly reduce their risk of flooding.
I can’t help but feel this is a bit of a stretch.
County emergency management have been posting similar things: https://www.facebook.com/LevyCountyFlorida/posts/pfbid0AmFsAGJdmpYxruYNU5pyhucy6KBGWcBR1KQdnEvtdirw23F6renstMydr7XJbG4ol
There's a science to doing effective evacuation, and it's not something that can be summarized in a single comment.
Here's an example paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.net.2022.04.011
It probably needs to be localized with relevant details, but the average patterns should become clear.
As someone who has been stuck on i10 traffic trying to get out of Houston, it sounds expected.
Hope that person with the jerry cans is replacing their emergency gasoline often enough, that stuff goes bad pretty quickly even if it manages to stay uncontaminated out in the shed.
Good rule of thumb if you live in a hurricane area, always have at least half a tank of gas. Consider half to be your empty line. For this very reason
