eyewitness ccount during a real world catastrophe.

[Mortblanc]

We must also keep some perspective.

A lot of this "evacuation panic disorder" is exaggerated prepper hype.

There was ample warning for Katrina and Rita. People simply waited until it was too late and got caught in the traffic CF on the highway. While there might have been a heart attack or two along the roadway there was not massive death due to traffic jam. Inconvenience yes, but stupidity on someone else's' part does not constitute and emergency on my part.

The death toll was among the people that REFUSED TO EVACUATE!

It was the same with Hurricane Sandy. Of the 167 deaths due to that storm only 2 people died outside the mandatory evacuation zone. 165 people died because they refused to leave, not because they were caught in traffic while fleeing prior to the landfall of the storm.

And these hypes do not ever refer to the many successful evacuations that occur along the Florida, Georgia and North and South Carolina coasts every year during hurricane season. TPTB in those areas use detailed studies and evacuation guides based on 100 years of emergency planning. They evacuate hundreds of thousands of people on the main highway arteries and never a mention is made of their success rate.