Not likely in this situation. by Roy Lichtenstein

Who are the people who refuse to evacuate their homes under a mandatory evacuation order as a ferocious hurricane is only hours away? You may know some of them, but I don’t. They sound like a hardy and faithful group. I understand hunkering down if you aren’t in a zone required to leave. I would do the same. KPRC in Houston has an insightful article on the seemingly ignorant souls who remain despite orders to evacuate. Some are faith-based, others skeptical of forecasts, and a select few hinge their lives on mere fate. CNN reports that, according to a U.S. military official, some 37,000 people may need to be rescued after Hurricane Ike strikes..

Citing faith and fate, tens of thousands ignored calls to clear out Friday ahead of Ike, coastal authorities said. The National Weather Service warned that people in smaller structures in some areas “may face certain death.”

Faith sure is risky. But I’m not here to debate science vs. religion. Faith has its place in life, but science provides definite truth.

By afternoon, Mayor Larry Davison said only one person was believed to be left in Surfside Beach, a Gulf Coast town of about 800 people 30 miles southwest of Galveston.

Davison said authorities had been told the man had left, but later saw him on his porch. He had no phone.

A porch-sitter without a phone sounds like a bad movie theme. But this man may survive – the storm surge isn’t supposed to be as bad on the west side where he is.

Yet a stubborn few defied orders to leave. Emory Sallie, 44, of Galveston, said he had braved storms in the past and didn’t think Ike would be any different. He didn’t believe the dire warnings — he was more worried about the wind, not the flooding.

“If the island is going to disappear it has to be a tsunami,” he said, as he walked along the block where his home is located, drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette. “If it ain’t your time you ain’t going anywhere.”

The past does not always dictate the future, and tsunamis are no different than a storm surge. His last quote is true, but not logical. He should have switched the statement around to ‘you ain’t going anywhere if it ain’t your time.’

It was enough to persuade the Taylors’ neighbors to relent. David Fields, 45, and wife Dondi, 50, had written their Social Security numbers on their arms. Dondi Fields added “I heart U” and “for my kids” on hers.

“We didn’t want anybody to have to risk their life to come and get us,” Dondi Fields said.

I, too, would leave if I had to write my social security number on my arm.

Nearby Freeport was all but deserted, and quiet except for the increasingly roiling sea. Truck driver Darryl Jones Sr. and his neighbor, Keith Glover, talked about the impending hurricane without concern. Nearly everyone around them had obeyed a mandatory evacuation order.

“I’m just enjoying the serenity, really,” said Jones, 48, sitting in his electric golf cart. “You never know what the aftermath might hold, but right now it’s very peaceful.” Glover, who works for the nearby city of Clute, will work removing debris after the storm, but said he would have stayed anyway. “Worrying’s a sin,” he said.

Nice, an electric golf cart owner. I don’t believe worrying is a sin…

Some who stayed behind in Galveston relied on faith. Retiree William Steally, 75, said he was planning to ride it out, but his wife and sister-in-law left Thursday.

“She got scared and they left. I told them I believe in the man up there, God,” Steally said as he pointed to the sky. “I believe he will take care of me.”

God will be very busy later today dealing with such faith.

Clarence Romas, a 55-year-old handyman, said he would ride out the storm in his downstairs apartment with friends.

As for the “certain death” warning? “It puts a little fear in my heart,” he admitted, “but what’s gonna happen is gonna happen.”

A downstairs apartment sounds risky, and leaving low ground would prevent death that would otherwise happen.