(Survival News) An analysis that imagined what an evacuation in Florida ahead of the deadly, devastating Hurricane Ian would have looked like if most residents were driving electric vehicles is enough to horrify any rational person.
The hurricane, which slammed into the Gulf Coast of the Sunshine State on Wednesday near the Ft. Myers area, left in its wake massive damage, flooding and death. Fortunately for residents, GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis and state emergency officials warned them more than a week ago what a monster Ian was developing into and for those in the storm’s path to get out.
But had most residents been saddled with electric vehicles that are using current technologies and infrastructure, as bad as the hurricane was, the disaster would have been even greater.
Simply put, vast numbers of residents who would have tried to escape the storm would have likely been stranded on highways, out of power for their vehicles, and out of hope.
“It is fortunate that as of the current moment, electric vehicles constitute only about 100,000, out of nearly 8 million vehicles registered to drive on Florida’s roads. What if they all were electric, the (impractical) dream of greenies?” Thomas Lifton wrote.
He added:
Depending on how heavily loaded they were, even assuming everyone had a full battery charge, cars from southern Florida would start running out of juice after 100 – 250 miles. They would then have to spend hours at recharging stations, which would rapidly be clogged with other cars and trucks waiting their turn, since an electricity “fill up” can easily take an hour or more, as compared to a couple of minutes for gasoline. Cars waiting to be charged would spill onto the highways, potentially blocking traffic.
Those cars that ran out of juice on the highway would block traffic. Even assuming that emergency service vehicles could get to them (unlikely if the entire fleet were electric cars), towing a portable generator (powered by fossil fuels, of course) and recharging the stalled vehicles would take plenty of time, as well, further blocking traffic. The stranded cars would, of course, have no air conditioning, no wipers, no GPS.
The reality is, Lifton opined, highways would no doubt become nothing but long parking lots with passengers trapped wherever their EVs ran out of power. They would be exposed to the ravages of the storm as well as flooding from the storm surges and massive amounts of rain being dropped. There would be nowhere to escape.
“It is a nightmare scenario, and it is perfectly predictable. California and other states have already mandated a conversion to an all-electric vehicle fleet,” he added. “When natural disaster strikes and the fleet is electric vehicles, the disaster will be compounded if this mad scheme is carried through.”
