The other day I was driving on the gulf coast of Florida and every few hundred yards were signs marking that the road was a hurricane “evacuation route.” Now, I’m a firm believer that we have too many road signs in this country — case and point, a sign that tells you a historic marker is coming up — and these evacuation signs seem a little excessive if I’m being totally honest.
To help explain my thought process… when a hurricane is coming, ISN’T EVERY ROAD AN EVACUATION ROUTE???? I don’t need a sign to tell me which road leaves town, because I’ll drive on any road possible to get out of the way.
*side note: I still don’t know what THIS road sign is*
I’ll admit, though, as I’m typing this that it occurred to me why might these signs exist. Let’s say you’re trying to escape the path of the approaching hurricane. If it’s coming from the south, you’d want to head north. So at the very least, as needless as they seem, it would support the idea of using signs simply for the fact that you know you’re heading in the right direction to get far away from whatever coast is about to be hit by the storm.
But if you’re at the beach and don’t know which direction goes away from the beach, I think there are bigger problems that these signs can’t fix. So I’ll return to my original mantra if a hurricane is approaching: Every road that goes away from the shore is an evacuation route, whether there’s a sign confirming it or not!
Am I being too close-minded about this? What am I missing here?
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-Out of the Wilderness
Out of the Wilderness 