Has anyone seen a mandatory hurricane evacuation from a major population center along the Gulf coast? Houston was ordered to evacuate, because of my job I was considered essential and stayed. This was after Katrina and people thought Houston would be underwater. My boss evacuated and it took 7 hours to go 50 miles he was just outside Houston city limits when he realized he was running low on fuel in his ICE vehicle and traffic was still bareley moving so he made a major decision to turn around and head back home toward the hurricane. He got home in 30 minutes and had a drink and waited out the storm. Just think if the majority of those vehicles were EV, where would the hundreds of thousands be able to charge up all about the same distance from the city?
I've been to Houston and DFW..... you've got some big metroplexes there, with lots of folks to move.
Finally took a break a few Winters back, and flew to FLA. Rented a car, and drove to Key West, as we'd never been b4.
Canuck ignorance (mine)..... used to wide open spaces up here.... I was expecting Miami to be big, but what surprised me was the drive down The Keys. Waaayyyyy more built up than I expected, all along The Keys.... driving along, I noted the Emergency Evac Route signs.
Even closing down the south-bound side for Evac north, there's really not that much road to work with.... I was driving south that time of day, perfect weather, no storms predicted, thinking "
Wow, can't imagine moving all these people north, fast". Launched early enough (b4 storm), I'd say your only guaranteed quick transit would be private plane, chopper, or
very fast boat, down that far on the Keys.
One of the first thing I thought about, not that far off in time, is mass EV traffic, migrating on "normal" long-weekends here..... definitely a scaling/capacity issue today and near-term.
Southern big USA cities, during hurricane Evac.... several Orders of Magnitude next-level again...
Rgds, D.
