As the movie approaches its climax, we're told several times that a big snowstorm is coming and people should evacuate or that most of the town's population already has evacuated because of the storm.
Where in North America do people evacuate for a snowstorm? Certainly not in the far north woods, where DWTN seemed to be set.
It seemed like a silly device to limit the number of people the sheriff was responsible for.
The more southern U.S. does not handle winter storms as well as the north. Just last winter Alabama was hit with a storm that completely devastated the state, yet that same storm up north probably wouldn't even have mustered a delayed opening for schools. Also if you think about areas like Colorado, they get so much snow that they regularly shut down whole towns for the duration of the winter. Think the Shining.
shareWhere in North America? A lot of damn places have voluntary and even mandatory evacs for snow storms. Snowstorms can wipe out entire small towns.
shareSorry for the late reply. I just saw your response.
Can you give some examples of pre-snowstorm evacuations of entire towns or regions? I googled "evacuation snowstorm" and found only examples of places evacuated during or after a storm because of things like collapsing roofs, long-term power outages, or inability to supply large concentrations of people, such on a campus. Nothing about evacuations before storms except along coastlines, where the evacuations were due to threats from storm tides, not snow.
I can imagine individuals at high risk - old or sick people, for example - voluntarily evacuating to safer quarters before a big storm, but entire towns? Here on the East Coast, we have had quite a few extreme snowstorms in the last 20 years - 20+ inches of snow, massive drifts, lengthy power outages, and people cut off for many days. And yet, only those in need are evacuated even after the storm. In my entire life, I have never heard of even recommended evacuations, let alone mandatory ones, for snowstorms, even when the forecast is for blizzard conditions. I don't ever recall hearing stories about pre-storm evacuations of towns or regions further south, where snow is rare and causes (even more) chaos. And in the far north, where this movie was set, wouldn't the expectation be that people would be prepared for major storms, have adequate food on hand, batteries, alternative heat sources, etc.?
Evacuation for a snowstorm would be difficult because they typically cover such a large area - much larger than the high-threat area of a hurricane, for example. The area that would have to be evacuated could be vast, with distances to safe areas correspondingly long.
Believe it or not, I'm not trying to give you a hard time. I'm interested in disaster preparedness as a topic and am curious to know if there are places where the population is evacuated because of the threat of a blizzard.
I agree with you. You can't evac from a snowstorm. Where would you go? Florida? It's not like you can seek higher ground for safety. It snows even worse up high.
The weather broadcast they heard did specify the Atlantic Coast. I've lived in New England since the 70s. We don't evac. We just hide under a bunch of blankets or buy a generator and wait for the power to come back on.
Apparently people in Hollywood think snow storms work like wildfires.
And when the newscast was talking about how people from 6 counties had evacuated and roads were closed, the footage they were showing was of bare roads and then roads with very little snow at all.
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