People of the Deep South, at what temperature would you evacuate the region?

22 comments

1. We’re having four straight days of 100+ highs this week. Get me outta here!!!

2. …evacuate the *region*? Do you have any idea how big of an area you’re talking about?

   I ain’t leaving till James Spann tells me to leave. This is the way.

3. Maybe 130

4. Even if it’s 120 outside as long as my AC is working there’s no reason to evacuate, just gotta be mindful and use common sense when outside.

   For flooding the coast isn’t too far from me, I might have 1.5-2 feet of flooding before I need to get worried.

5. Probably +120F

6. If you’re including Florida in this, it would have to be significantly hotter, 10 degrees Fahrenheit a day on average or more, for me to consider moving just for that reason. I’m already used to moving from air conditioned location to air conditioned location, so the heat isn’t a big deal to me.

   Any flooding would have to pose a significant threat to my home or vital infrastructure to cause me to leave.

7. In the event that the South becomes so hot that it’s uninhabitable, we’ve got bigger problems than people fleeing the South. People live in Qatar, etc.

8. Evacuate?

   It would have to become literally inhospitable for me to leave. The heat can be brutal but I’ve been dealing with it my whole life. I really don’t have to be outside for any extended periods either, so it would have to get to the point that human life is infeasible before I made that decision.

9. When they close the Waffle House.

10. Texas gulf coast here. We got hit by Harvey. Fleeing from predicted flooding is a dangerous idea. You get stuck on the roads and the roads are designed to flood to keep homes and business from flooding. We were very conscious of the flood maps when we bought our house. We talked to the neighbors who have been here since the 70s. The neighborhood has never flooded. If it didn’t flood in Harvey, I doubt it will flood in my lifetime. We buy our supplies and hunker down. We have a few home improvement projects to tackle before this, but I want to put in a whole home generator.

    Edit: typo

11. Lol. The heat index was 120 last week and I’m still here, so above that. I’m pretty sure I’m not leaving based on temperature alone. Born and raised here.

    Flooding? Well, I live on the top of a pretty big ridge. If I’m flooded out, thousands are dead already. Probably going to stay up here because it’s safer than going down to where the water is.

    People of the Deep South are tough birds. We don’t tend to evacuate or flee. We tend to dig in and deal with it.

12. Evacuate? In our moment of triumph?

13. Probably 120°F or higher. Where I live the highs are around 95-101° and it’s not too unbearable if I’m inside with the AC, but I sure as hell won’t be going outside

14. Wouldn’t even consider it until 120. At 130 for more than one day I’d most likely evacuate.

15. Florida is barely an inhabitable climate now, I don’t know if getting a bit less inhabitable will make people leave

16. The last thing southern people do when it’s hot is flee. The higher the temp, the slower you move.

17. Temperature has no limit. Even as southerner, as much as it may be hard for even me to believe, there are inhabited parts of the world that are hotter. Plus, in modern days, so long energy prices don’t keep going up, we have air conditioning down south, which makes living in the south a lot easier.

    Flooding depends on a number of things. How fast is it coming down? 28 inches of rain over the course of the year isn’t that bad, but 28″ in matter of hours is no joke. Also, is your home off the ground. If your home is off the ground, the floodwaters will be underneath a house just like water is underneath an oil rig. Provided you have enough food and fresh drinking water, maybe electricity via a generator, you could ride out a flooding event. If your home is not built off the ground, you ought to watch weather forecasts and evacuation orders more closely.

18. That’s not how things work my boy.

19. IIRC, if you look at the climate models, the closer to the equator you are, the less the temperature is expected to rise, and the closer to the poles the more. So deep south may see a 3-5 degree temperature increase, with only late July and August being noticeably unbearable. Whereas northern Canada and Russia could become the new breadbasket of the world.

    Not counting repeated extreme weather events, which may induce people to move too. I’d guess the second or third time your house is severely damaged will cause many to leave.

20. As long as I have working a/c I’m good. I don’t think flooding is a huge concern where I’m at.

21. If I could afford to evacuate the south, I would’ve done it decades ago. I hate the weather here so much. It legitimately makes my depression and anxiety 1000 times worse.

22. “What temperature”, but your question has to do with flooding?

    What does one have to do with the other?