Local authorities ordered a mandatory evacuation for part of Lee County, Florida, on Tuesday, just one day before the Category 4 storm made mainland landfall.
that another problem the county faced on Monday was that schools were open even though they had also been designated as emergency shelters.County officials knew that evacuating Lee County would not be easy.lays out the agency's rationale for how it decides whether to issue an evacuation and also warns about the specific challenges facing the region.
"Due to our large population and limited road system, Southwest Florida is the hardest place in the country to evacuate in a disaster," the document says. In determining whether and how to evacuate residents who are willing and able to go, the document goes on, officials should consider the risks of evacuation, the magnitude of the storm and how disruptive an evacuation would be to residents and businesses.
The county had also estimated the amount of time it would take to evacuate residents under several different scenarios. According to the document, it could take 20 hours to evacuate all of Zones A, B and C into emergency shelters within Lee County. That timeframe increases"dramatically" if residents attempt to leave the county altogether.
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