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Evacuations with cars are a bottleneck
(lemmy.world)
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15424245
A highway camera photo shows traffic in FortMcMurray jammed in the southbound lane of Highway 63 on the north side of the Athabasca River. The image was captured at 3:11 p.m. MT, about an hour after an evacuation order was issued for four neighbourhoods. (511 Alberta)
Evacuation order issued as wildfire threatening Fort McMurray draws closer https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-wildfire-grande-prairie-fort-mcmurray-1.7203695
I would say an evacuation is one of the best use cases of cars I can think of. Cars are most likely packed with people and stuff and not just single drivers commuting. Everyone can start at a different point and - even more important - head into a different direction once you left the immediate surroundings of the evacuation zone. And cars are at - least temporarily - indepenent from energy infrastructure. If you have a power outage in an area, many cars will still have sufficient fuel or electricity in board to reach the next working petrol or charging station.
I just moved to a community that has a higher likelihood of forest fires. For the past weeks I wasn't bothering to fully charge my electric car but with the fire season starting I decided to do the opposite. I'm going to keep my car between 70-80 percent charged so if we need to evacuate then we can take our vehicles and animals with us. I don't want to leave the car near the house where it could explode in a fire.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1738573322002133#sec5