what is the law regarding mand., evacs for barrier islands i

[cpdaman]

and do they differ from texas.

i understand lots of people stayed on the barrier island's near galveston.

i also understand that the barrier islands of palm beach and broward county's also had manadaotry evacs for storms like frances, and jeanne. my question is can they remove you by force in fl. or do they unlike in texas? is there legal punishments by the city if you are in a house you own, or by the leasing office if it's an appt. complex? just interested in the different rules by state?

[Recurve]

Florida law does not allow forced removal by authorities for an evacuation order in advance of a storm, as far as I know. Texas law may be different, but for practical purposes, authorities obviously don't have resources for that.
They can block roads and prevent movement, but has anybody ever seen people dragged out of their homes in advance of a storm?

[Sanibel]

I think the mandatory evacuation here on Sanibel clears the town of any liability for not warning you. We had a robot call from the town the day before Charley telling us the island was under mandatory evacuation. However you can stay if you want to, your safety is always up to you.

Living on a barrier island is tough for someone who wants to ride out a hurricane. We have to evacuate even for low category storms simply because of the surge risk. We can't explain to the insurance company that we toasted two cars because we wanted to see what a hurricane was like. As Charley showed hurricanes can explode in intensity offshore here in favorable waters. So low intensity or surge can never be assumed. I guess I'll have to be satisfied with Wilma's west side that I rode out here. Sanibel has a hurricane building code where all houses have to be built on stilts or have a hurricane proof first level. But for those thinking of riding out a hurricane on Sanibel I ask them to take one look at Bolivar, which has indentical terrain to Sanibel, and think about it.

One thing I don't like is the assumption by the town of when I can come back to my house. I went to the town board meeting at the hotel in Ft Myers to ask when they would let us back onto the island to our houses? They repsonded there was no sewer or electric on the island so we couldn't be let back. I responded that they should realize there's no sewer or electric in the hotel they were currently set up in either. They had no response. I'm seriously not OK with superficial town boards making assumptions about what I can and cannot handle and treating me like some kind of generalized idiot at their convenience. I hiked the Appalachian Trail for 5 months and have no problem living primitively. Even worse their decision was possibly preventing me from doing repairs to my house that would save me further damage. These new post 9-11 powers were an obvious part of their assumption. These decisions were mostly unnecessary and mostly based on the convenience of the town for total control at my expense. If you want to know why some people don't evacuate you can look in that direction - foolish or not.