Clarence Skinner, a county commissioner in Dare County, N.C., was defeated for re-election after the evacuation of Cape Hatteras in 1995 for Hurricane Felix, which wound up stalling at sea. Skinner, chairman of the group that decided to evacuate the vulnerable barrier island, was blamed for disrupting tourism. It's a stressful business. Mother Nature and human nature. Even so, he needs days to evacuate everyone willing to leave.
Evacuations are costly, and one cost of an unnecessary evacuation is credibility.
So some of the best calls are the ones that aren't made. Take Hurricane Lili, which was heading toward Key West in October 1996, in time for the biggest tourist event of the year, Fantasy Fest. Wagner was at the National Hurricane Center, resigned to calling an evacuation. The county commissioners were asking why he hadn't already. It looks like it might be turning to the northeast.