Better Safe Then Sorry ... Or Dead

By Bill Korbel

One of the most difficult decisions the residents of Galveston had to make as Hurricane Ike roared towards them was whether or not to evacuate.  To leave your home and possessions to the winds of chance must be an agonizing choice.  Many left, but some 10,000 or so decided to stay.  After listening to interviews with many of the survivors, without exception, they said that next time they would leave. 

I saw this in the Houston Chronical.  It should be required reading for anyone who decides to ignore orders to evacuate the next time a hurricane heads for Long Island. 

         "When Rita came three years ago, everyone was warned to leave or face a likely death, and when the storm turned away, people rode bicycles on the streets of Galveston.

Even as Ike bore down on the island where he has lived all his life and worked as a commercial fisherman, he felt assured, whipping up a bowl of chili for himself and six family members and cozying up in his living room to watch TV.

``I thought this was going to be like that. I was very wrong. It's bad, real bad. We barely made it out.''

At about 11 p.m., he took a look outside and saw the water. Before he knew it, the surge flooded through the door and the electrical sockets, up to his feet, his knees and his waist. His mattress and couch began to float, his 12 year-old son threw up in the bathroom and his 19 year-old son wrote down his social security number on his arm, assuring his father that he wasn't scared, but wanted to make sure he could be identified.

``We were staring down death,'' he said.

Rushing decided to try tying himself and his family members to a tree outside in hopes they would be rescued.

Just as he broke a window in the living room, though, something very unexpected happened: the eye passed over.

``It's like somebody pushed a button and turned off everything,'' said Rushing, 37. ``It was eerie.''

So he loaded up his wife, pregnant daughter, two sons, nephew, cousin and two dogs on a ski boat made for five people and navigated the streets, which were flooded with six to eight feet of water.

They were 20 blocks from the San Luis Hotel, where the city's leaders and emergency operations personnel were staying. The boat ran aground about four blocks from the hotel, and the whole crowd ran straightaway from there, making it before the fierce winds picked up again.

Once he arrived, he spoke wide-eyed to reporters and firefighters, almost in shock, while his family slept.

``I'm beat up, I'm traumatized,'' he said, wondering if the shrimp boat he depends on for his livelihood had been destroyed. ``My wife's mad at me. She wanted to evacuate. Next time, we'll leave a week early.''

This month marks the 70th anniversary of the last really big hurricane to hit Long Island; The Great Hurricane of 1938; The Long Island Express.  It was a storm that was similar in strength to Ike, perhaps a bit stronger.  If that same storm were to strike the island today, much of the south shore would look just like Galveston.  Keep the pictures of Ike's destruction in mind if the time ever comes for you to make a life or death decision. It's odd that many people are deathly afraid of getting on a commercial airliner where the chance of being killed is about 50 million to 1 but will risk their life and their families life to ride out a hurricane when the odds could be as low as 1 or 2 thousand to 1!