2008 : Hurricane Ike Brought “Certain Death”

Weather service warns of ‘certain death’ in face of Ike
NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER

September 11, 2008

Texans sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic Thursday on a highway from Galveston County into Houston.
Residents living in single-family homes in some parts of coastal Texas face “certain death” if they do not heed orders to evacuate ahead of Hurricane Ike’s arrival, the National Weather Service said Thursday night.

The unusually strong wording came in a weather advisory regarding storm surge along the shoreline of Galveston Bay, which could see maximum water levels of 15 to 22 feet, the agency said.

“All neighborhoods … and possibly entire coastal communities … will be inundated during the period of peak storm tide,” the advisory said. “Persons not heeding evacuation orders in single-family one- or two-story homes will face certain death.”

Weather service warns of ‘certain death’ in face of Ike – CNN

Apparently 200,000 people died.

Why Hurricane Ike’s “Certain Death” Warning Failed
Willie Drye
for National Geographic News
September 26, 2008

As residents of Galveston, Texas, were allowed to return to the devastated island this week, experts puzzled over why tens of thousands of others had remained during Hurricane Ike—despite the National Weather Service’s “certain death” warning.

Among the possible explanations: memories of a chaotic 2005 evacuation, an anti-government attitude, and a false sense of security fueled by TV news and the abundance of hurricane data on the Web.

Gene Hafele, director of the Houston-Galveston National Weather Service office, said about 500,000 people in and around Galveston were in a mandatory evacuation zone, and only about 300,000 left.

Why Hurricane Ike’s “Certain Death” Warning Failed