Can emergency evacuations be forced on residents?

There are catastrophic events that occur around the world that makes evacuations absolutely necessary in order to save lives. But can residents be forced to evacuate their homes? Before I answer that question, let me give you some idea of what has happened to people who chose not to leave their homes when the threat of death was imminent.

The May 18th 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, located 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Seattle, Washington, was so powerful it blew off the top of the mountain. It killed 57 people, flattened 220 square miles (570 square kilometers) of forestland, and paralyzed much of the inland Pacific Northwest with gritty volcanic ash. Before it exploded, everyone in the immediate area of the volcano was warned to get out of the area. Some remained behind and died.

Thousands of people living in coastal areas and in floating houses in Manokwari, Indonesia's West Papua province, fled to hills or other higher places when a tidal wave hit the area at 12 a.m. local time on January 5th 2008. The tidal wave which reached heights of up to five meters swept through several coastal villages and also reached the city center of Manokwari. No one in his or her right mind would choose not to evacuate when facing the prospect of being drowned in a tidal wave. Some chose to remain behind and drowned.

Between October 20th and the 23rd, 1991, a large brush fire in a drought-stricken area in California destroyed over 3,000 homes and apartments. At least 24 people died. In 2009, Australia's worst wildfires have killed 173 people, destroyed more than 750 homes, left 5,000 people homeless, and burned 2,200 square kilometres of land. Some chose to remain behind and were burned to death.

New Orleans braced itself for a catastrophic blow from Hurricane Katrina as forecasters predicted the Category 5 storm could drive a wall of water over the city's levees. The huge storm, packing 175 mph winds, was expected to hit the northern Gulf Coast in the next nine hours and make landfall as a Category 5 hurricane. Nearly 1 million people had fled the city and its surrounding parishes. As the hurricane, headed toward the area, thousands of people in New Orleans jammed freeways leaving the city. Some chose to remain behind and died.

One of the persons who lived in the area of St. Helens volcano was a man called Harry Truman. He refused to leave his lodge at Spirit Lake and was eventually given special permission to stay. Other locals living near the mountain balked at the limited access they had to their property. In the weeks before the eruption on May 18th, the mountain had become unusually quiet and many people believed the danger had past. They were tired of the disruption to their lives and wanted the blockades removed. Rob Carson, Skamania County Sheriff William Closner stated, "People went over, under, through, and around the barricades every time we tried to restrict access to what we believed were dangerous areas. There were even maps sold showing how to get around our blockades on the mountain.” There are fifty-seven known victims of the volcanic eruption and that includes Harry Truman who bragged to the press that he was going to sit it out. He did and in the process, he died a horrible death.

Despite the pending catastrophes, people choose to remain in their homes. Foolish as their decisions may seem, many of them survive however, others do not. The question that has to be answered is; do the authorities have the authority to remove residents from their homes when there is a risk that by remaining in their homes, they may be killed?

The Mississauga train derailment of 1979 occurred on November 10, 1979, in Mississauga in the province of Ontario, Canada when a 106-car Canadian Pacific freight train carrying explosive and poisonous chemicals from Windsor, Ontario was derailed near the intersection of Mavis Road and Dundas Street in Mississauga, Ontario. As a result of the derailment, over 200,000 people were evacuated in what was then the largest peacetime evacuation in North America up until the New Orleans evacuation of 2005. Fortunately and remarkably, there were no deaths resulting from the spill.

Chlorine gas is a very deadly gas when inhaled. It is a pale green gas about 2.5 times as dense as air. It was used in the First World War as a weapon. When chlorine gas is inhaled at concentrations above 30 parts per million, it begins to react with water and cells which change it into hydrochloric acid, one of the most power acids there is. Death by suffocation with this gas is also very painful. No one with any common sense would want to be anywhere near an area where there is a possibility that such a gas may be accidentally released into the air.

This issue of enforced evacuation came up during the Mississauga crisis of 1979. Immediately after the evacuation order had been given, a man in Mississauga was jogging in the morning, completely unaware that a mandatory evacuation order had been issued by the mayor of the city. Even though he had a plane to catch that morning, he wasn’t permitted to return to his home to change into his clothes, pick up his suitcase or airline ticket. Despite the mandatory evacuation order having been given, many people chose to remain in their homes in Mississauga during that crisis. When people refused to leave their homes after it became apparent to the police that they were still in their homes, they were arrested and charged with disobeying a police officer.

After the crisis was over and people returned to their homes, a large number of residents who had refused to evacuate their homes when demanded were charged under the Criminal Code of Canada with obstruction of a peace officer (failing to obey the instructions of a police officer).

I was concerned that the police were exercising authority that they didn’t have. I offered to prepare a report on that issue to the legal office of the Canadian National Railway that was already preparing a report about the derailment and to the Peel Regional Police that had jurisdiction in Mississauga. They both accepted my offer.

The first thing I did was to study the Constitutions of 30 major countries around the world and with the exception of Egypt; none of them had legislation that gave police officers the authority to enforce evacuations of residential homes in cases of dire emergencies. When I looked at the legislation governing police officers in the province of Ontario, I discovered that they too didn’t have that power.

The reason is obvious. If they had that right, then they would also have the obligation to go into a burning house to rescue victims in the house. No police force makes it mandatory that police officers have to risk their lives to save others. I should add however that if a police officer in Ontario is convinced that a person in need of help is mentally incompetent to recognize the importance of leaving the scene of a disaster, he can remove that person under the authority of the Ontario Mental Health Act. Further, the police can bring a child out of the house if they think that the child’s life is in danger.

The Canadian Bill of Rights states the following:

“It is hereby recognized and declared that in Canada there have existed and shall continue to exist without discrimination by reason of race, national origin, colour, religion or sex, the following human rights and fundamental freedoms, namely; the right of the individual to life, liberty, security of the person and enjoyment of property, and the right not to be deprived thereof except by due process of law.”

The word ‘liberty’ and ‘security of the person’ have been given broad interpretations by the Supreme Court of Canada. ‘Liberty’ has been held to cover a person’s personal autonomy to live his or her own life and to make decisions that are of fundamental personal importance’ and security to cover both the physical and psychological integrity of the individual. In other words, the right of the individual to liberty and security of the person means that a person cannot be arbitrarily apprehended by the police for the purpose of saving their lives.

Officials in Australia defended their actions of forced evacuations during the unprecedented infernos that swept across southeastern Australia that killed at least 200 people. They admitted that the forced expulsions probably would not have prevented all of the deaths as the fire was out of control. Disaster teams moving into towns burned out in the inferno found charred bodies on roadsides and in crashed cars – grim signs of futile attempts to flee.

The police told the residents whose homes were in danger of being engulfed by the raging fires that they could stay and defend their homes or evacuate. Some stayed and sprayed water from their garden hoses onto their roofs to keep the flying embers from setting their roofs on fire and as a result, they saved their homes. Those who chose to flee; came back to their homes only to discover to their horror that their homes were burned to the ground.

The lawmakers in Australia may rewrite the law on what is considered the best policy of allowing residents in high-risk areas to decide for themselves whether to stay or flee. The high death toll from hundreds of wildfires across southeastern Australia has forced authorities to re-examine an accepted survival strategy when blazes threaten: Get out early or hunker down and fight.

The way I see it is as follows: Adults of sound mind have the right to remain in a disaster area if it is their purpose to protect their homes and contents. However, the authorities should have the right to order the police to remove children, and those who are infirmed either mentally or physically and without having to obtain a court order to do so.