SLPAD - 55 -

[Michael Bailey]

Weather Bureau “foulup”: they said not to evacuate early because the storm
wouldn’t hit till Thursday night, so when the storm hit in the wee hours of
Thursday morning, the people were still there.



This newspaper article talks about Hurricane Audrey near Lake Charles in
June, 1957. It doesn’t mention a call not to evacuate, but many residents
opted to stay & there were casualties as well as hair-raising tales of
survival.

https://www.houmatoday.com/story/news/2008/06/11/newspaper-editorial-in-1958-gives-warnings-to-evacuate-for-storm/26846248007/




This retrospective does mention laxity in evacuation notices, without
naming names:

https://www.kvue.com/amp/article/weather/hurricane-audrey-deadly-1957-history/269-a67e08fc-ece9-4992-8fa4-95a55906a988





A similar failure to evacuate did occur in Vanport, Oregon, in 1948:

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/03/02/389482158/the-time-nature-and-racism-teamed-up-to-wipe-out-a-whole-town


Vanport was built as a temporary housing solution to Portland's rapidly
growing population. At its peak it housed nearly 40,000 residents, close to
40 percent were African-American. But an unusually wet spring in 1948
created a hole in the railroad dike blocking the Columbia River, and it
erupted into massive flooding. City officials didn't warn residents of the
dangerously high water levels and opted not to evacuate. The town was wiped
out within a day and 18,500 families were displaced, more than a third
African-American.




“They had a few more beers and talked about the hurricane and everyone
agreed that for the next few days they were probably going to be working
their ass off, and this led to several statements, obscene and disaffected,
about the nature of the U.S. Army. “Re-up,” Rizzo said….”