Nightmare scenario of hurricane shelters

[QuietRiot]

I live in Florida and with the recent passing of our storm...which has left me and others nervous, I'm hearing certain guidelines that the govt has come up with not only shelters, but guidelines for entering a hurricane shelter.

For one, there are temperature checks done at the door, if you have a temp., you're not allowed in the shelter.  MAJOR flaw there, because some people that are CV positive, do NOT have high temps...believe it or not, so you could be letting in ticking time bombs.

2nd, they are allowing for more buildings as shelters as a solution to social distancing. And some of us govt personal will be sharing space (the building) with the local riff-raff, if you catch my drift...and I don't go for it.

I'm putting this in the same wheel house as teachers who fear for their health when it comes to the schools re-opening.

That said, do you honestly think temp checks and more shelters is a feasible solution to participate in these shelters in a shared space?

[schlumpy]

9 minutes ago, QuietRiot said:

That said, do you honestly think temp checks and more shelters is a feasible solution to participate in these shelters in a shared space?

Nope, but you do the best you can with the resources at hand. Between now and September no one is going to magically whip up shelters with built-in isolation chambers. If a big one shows up your best bet is to grab your camping gear and head for the interior for a couple of weeks.

Have any relatives in Arizona with a free couch?

[QuietRiot]

26 minutes ago, schlumpy said:

Nope, but you do the best you can with the resources at hand. Between now and September no one is going to magically whip up shelters with built-in isolation chambers. If a big one shows up your best bet is to grab your camping gear and head for the interior for a couple of weeks.

Have any relatives in Arizona with a free couch?

Apparently, any job you apply for with the govt has a little blurb at the bottom of EACH job posting that says you are obligated to participate in emergency services operations if your superiors are wanting you to. This would mean having to camp out in these shelters until the storm passes, which is typically 24 hrs.

[d0nnivain]

There are no good alternatives here.  The temperate checks are something.  They can't not have shelters.  What is going to happen when people lose their power or homes. 

If you are uncomfortable, bug out at every storm or do what you can to shelter in place.  

[clia]

2 hours ago, QuietRiot said:

2nd, they are allowing for more buildings as shelters as a solution to social distancing. And some of us govt personal will be sharing space (the building) with the local riff-raff, if you catch my drift...and I don't go for it.

I don't catch your drift.  Who are the "local riff-raff"?  People who have been forced to evacuate their homes due to the storm?  

[serial muse]

FEMA put out a document in May with recommendations for hurricane sheltering during the COVID19 pandemic. Ah, looks like they updated in July. I apologize for putting a PDF link here, but there's no webpage landing site, so a direct link to the document is the surest way of pointing to it.

Bottom line is that, yeah, FEMA wants to limit the number of evacuees because they will be trying to keep people distant in shelters and they are concerned about being overwhelmed. In this doc they are pushing "targeting messaging" to limit the number of voluntary evacuees, for that reason. I think there's also some discussion (not in this doc) of working with hotels to make rooms available to evacuees - but many hotels are in evacuation zones so not clear how that would work. Basically, IMO, it's a giant mess and they don't know what to do.

https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/2020-07/fema-2020-hurricane-pandemic-plan_english.pdf

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If a big one shows up your best bet is to grab your camping gear and head for the interior for a couple of weeks.

Definitely don't do this! Well, depends on what means by "interior" I suppose. But for people in FL, the interior of the state isn't far from the coast anyway, and certainly not far from a potential hurricane's path. These are huge storms. Irma in 2017 covered the entire state at one point. You don't want to be in a tent in the middle of a hurricane, or even in its outer bands. Yikes.