Why Didn't Some Residents Of New Orleans Leave The City When Hurricane Katrina Was About To Hit?

Question

I remember watching the news and it seemed like they gave everyone ample warning to leave the city a week prior to the hurricane and it was well forecasted that this would be a big one. Why didn't some people leave?

I mean I know the hurricane hit more than New Orleans, but it seems like they had the most damage and the most deaths. How did these people not know that they should leave?

This is in no way excuses FEMA and their botched attempts at helping the victims.

Answer 1

Mostly they had no transportation out. Baton Rouge is a days walk away and even that had a category 1 from Katrina, which is still very dangerous.

Some stayed because they couldn't bring there pets with them, who are like family.

Many elderly stayed(the largest amount of deaths were the elderly) because of many reasons that would associate with being elderly, also because they just didn't have it in them to leave and many of their families stayed to take care of them.

Finally, we have been threated with so many large storms, Ivan, George, etc. and never got one that big in nearly 30 years. Many people doubted it happening.

Answer 2

Hind sight is always 20/20.  Many residents had been through the warnings many times before, and thought they could ride it out like the other times.  Little did they know how devastating it would actually be.

Residents of Houston get the same warnings when a hurricane hits the Gulf of Mexico, and due to various reasons choose to not leave their homes.  My husband's family is from Houston, and they have told me stories of all the hurricane's they endured -- Camille and Carla especially.  My in laws never left their home for fear of theft and looting.  Perhaps residents of New Orleans felt the same way.

Answer 3

actually there was 3 days notice,at most my boyfriend heard about it with one days notice & left right after his night work shift.  I heard of people that never knew it was coming.  katrina went across the southern tip of Fla & it was presumed  that it would die, having gone over land. so this is where you were hearing about it when it was atlantic heading to Fla. With such little notice their is allot of worry that it is more dangerous to be stuck in your car.

SERIOUSLY! I am offended at your lack of understanding & research into your question. It took me 1 click to pull it up on wiki & find out what kind of warning residents had.Three days before Katrina's second and third landfalls, the National Hurricane Center began predicting that the storm would make landfall as a major hurricane with New Orleans only possibly in the path.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_We...

I see that your from Cali where when fires threaten a region the police & firefighters come door to door & tell residents to leave, do they provide transportation to the shelters too?

my mother in law & Sister I.L. had to drive pretty far into Texas untill they could find anywhere to stay. I knew people who swam past dead bodies to get to the dry overpass, but I suppose its cause they were stupid & lazy they stayed. I have also heard of people in Cali who snuck around firefighter's road blocks to get home & save the only copy of the novel they had written.

Answer 4

You should watch Spike Lee's  "When the levee's break" which aired on HBO.  It will answer a lot of your questions and leave you with even more.  

Answer 5

they had time to leave but a lot of them didn't have any place to go. all of their family either lived in New Orleans or some where in the south some didn't have the resources to go any where not everyone has the money to pack up their lives and go to a hotel out of the state.

Answer 6

A lot of people don't understand the amount of poverty that existed in  New Orleans.  Most people didn't have the money or the transportation to leave the city.  You could see by the way residents were leaving on foot with belongings on their back that they were simply stuck there with absolutely no way out.  There were people who had no choice but to stay in their homes and then were forced into attics or onto roofs.  Many died in their attics due to heat and lack of fresh air & water to drink.  No one came to their rescue.  If you watched on the TV there were people on rooftops begging for help.  There were bloated bodies floating around.  Even at the emergency centers they did not have proper facilities for those who were dying and ill.  It was proof that America can come to the aid of every other country that exists but when we have a significant tragedy in our own country we deny it and do not come to the aid of our own people until it is almost too late.  I blame FEMA, the President and the entire Government.  New Orleans is still suffering today.

Peace & Love  :)

Answer 7

The other answers (most of them) are correct and the majority of the people who did not evacuate stayed because they did not have the money to leave.  The news media made a big deal of people being "too poor to own cars", but that was very rarely true.  What was true was that people didn't have $300 per day or more to spend on hotels + restaurant meals in addiditon to the cost of driving away.

People had NO WHERE to go except the Superdome unless they could afford to pay for hotels and restaurants. Note that is STILL the case and there have been no plans made for future large evacuations.  It is an issue that could affect more than New Orleans or even just coastal areas.

However, your question includes at least one of the common myths about Katrina, which was that "they gave everyone ample warning to leave the city a week prior to the hurricane".

Katrina was forecast to go elsewhere until about 60 hours before landfall (the storm struck the Gulf coast during the morning of August 29, 2005).  A comprehensive state of emergency was declared on August 26th and the evacuation order was given on the 27th.  More than 90 percent of the New Orleans area's 1,400,000 population was able to leave and the highways were empty by the evening of the 28th.  About half of those who could not or would not leave went to the Superdome, which was the designated shelter. Emergency management experts believed it would take 96 hours to evacuate or shelter a city the size of New Orleans, but NOLA did it in 48 hours.

Another common myth is that New Orleans is often struck by hurricanes. However, the last one to hit before Katrina was Betsy in 1965 and before that was a minimal hurricane in 1947 (the storms weren't named until the 1950s).  Neither of those storms flooded the city-proper.

Finally, FEMA is not a first-responder agency. The governmental authority that "botched attempts at helping the victims" was the State of Louisiana under Governor "Blank Stare" Blanco.

Answer 8

Some of us that live in Florida thought the same thing watching the storm for at least 5 days head for the state.  We have a storm heading to Florida in the next few days and have already started to make our plans.  Even if only a category one we make plans as if to expect to be without electricity, water, food, and gas for at least a week.  Category 2 storms you move south or north depending on the path (and thus stay with friend north or south and they do the same if the storm hits them).  Category 3 or greater you just evacuate the state if it's a direct hit.  In that case you plan on staying with family in Georgia or the Carolina's.  Once you have lived thru hurricane season friends will open there doors to you  when storms pass thru since we all know it's only time until it hits us.

Answer 9

Some of us were so poor that we had no means of evacuation. Others refused to leave (like the elderly people) because they lived there SO long, & they were SUPER afraid to leave the place they lived @ for 78 yrs.