NLT
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- Nov 21, 2011
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Wrong again BozoUntrue, even during a mandatory evacuation no one has the authority to remove you from your home. It just means that there will be no rescue operations in these areas until conditions permit.
Voluntary vs. mandatory evacuations
More disasters mean more evacuation orders. But when disaster looms, it’s not the federal government that issues those evacuation orders. That power is left solely to the states.
Those orders come in two flavors: voluntary and mandatory. There’s wide agreement that states have the power to declare a mandatory evacuation, including the power to use “reasonable force” to enforce it.
Enforcing a Mandatory Evacuation
At common law, the normal penalties and consequences of disobeying a lawful order come into play for disobeying an evacuation order. In states like Maryland and California, these have been codified as criminal offenses9. So, a person who fails to evacuate is committing a crime and subject to arrest—meaning the police can seize their person and take them elsewhere, that is, evacuate them. This argument has been raised and implicitly accepted by the Louisiana courts in several of the lawsuits filed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, wherein several authorities have been sued for false arrest, wrongful imprisonment and civil rights violations in the course of enforcing the various mandatory evacuation orders10.
Fight or Flight: On Enforcing Mandatory Evacuations