Poll: Coastal Residents Won’t Evacuate
About one in three people living in Southern coastal areas said they would ignore hurricane evacuation orders if a storm threatened their community, up from about one in four last year, a poll released Tuesday shows … Thirty-one percent of respondents said they would not evacuate. Another 5 percent said their decision would depend on the circumstances.
D refers to this article as spin and yellow journalism, and interprets it as follows:
“64% would [evacuate], 31% would not, 5% say it depends on the situation, so if the headline was ‘Poll: Majority of coastal residents would evacuate’ it would be more accurate. The phrase ‘Coastal residents won’t evacuate’ infers that few if any would evacuate. So they are saying last year the poll showed 25% wouldn’t evacuate, this year 33% won’t? Not really, the percentage is 31 out of 100, or closer to 3 out of 10 than 1 in 3. If they say 3100 out of 10,000 the smaller number seems even less significant. ”
Or, at least say “Increasing number of coastal residents will not evacuate.” Sheesh, some journalists. It’s great, however, that less people want to evacuate because
New Orleans Home Sellers Struggle
In coastal Louisiana and Mississippi, a glut of higher-end homes points to soaring property insurance costs that are pricing many people out of the market. It also speaks to the legions of doctors and other professionals who have left the area and have yet to return.
And, where are these people moving? To the Top 100, of course. Middleton, WI, where a number of my friends live, comes in at #1. w00t!
First, let me dust off my old green eye shade and say its not fair to blame journalists (which most people would take to mean writers) with headline writers, or the editors who sign off on pages with inaccurate headlines. Anyonw who’s been in the writing biz has cursed more than one rewrite/headline editor.
Did the housing article actually link employment data to listed homes or is this just an ugly bit of conventional wisdom that is entering public discourse with out real data to back it up? I’m sure we lost medical people. I saw the article quoting the local medical society, and of course with so few hospital beds reopened we’re sure to lose some. Does this really translate into a widespread brain drain?
The article mentioned one in three, as opposed to 33%, so their take on the stats is questionable, even if I allow for the headline.
According to the home sales in NO article, home purchases are up in “working class” neighborhoods while not in “white collar” areas. It would be good to know where they got their doctors leaving stats from.