Hurricane Ike - Why They Stay?

Newsweek's article, Riders on the Storm, has some interesting points on why people chose to remain in spite of the mandatory evacuation order.

As I've said before, I suspect that there will be people who evacuated from IKE this time that will stay next time because it took so long for the officials to allow them back on the island to start dealing with the muck and to minimize mold damage.

Many of the folks who stayed through the storm are glad they did - while they may have had water in their home, they themselves were safe in upper stories. I personally would have been terrified if strong waves of water was swirling under my home, if I didn't know how high the water would rise in the dark, or if I was in a wood frame home where the sound of the howling winds would have terrified me wondering if the house could take it. Certainly the high rises seemed to have been "safe" places. And the seawall did its job sheltering the city from the high, strong waves. However, there are certainly stories of people whose places were not "safe" whose survival is miraculous. And, while the death count is still extremely low given the severity of this storm, they are still searching for bodies in the wreckage and finding some.

I can hope it will be another 25 years before another storm this powerful hits the Texas coast. The survivors of Ike won't forget which lesson they learned - better to evacuate or better to stay.