I spent a few days half way up Mt Fuji many years ago and feel much safer dealing with the climate I am familiar with rather than the cold. An outhouse with only screen wire on the windows makes for a miserable start to the morning.
Most of the problems with blizzards are when people get caught on the road or in the middle of nowhere. You can get caught by surprise too with a blizzard but you are generally not in bed. Same problem though if you can’t get to someone in need due to water or snow or people can’t get to work in the hospitals and service industries for the same reason. Thing is businesses, and people need to have evacuation and relocation plans. In Minnesota anyway, nursing homes, hospitals, etc. are mandated to have relocation sites and procedures established. Sometimes you pre-position equipment, supplies, and other assets to use just for that purpose. Problem is when the sites are too close together and all hit by the same storm, but that’s why thought needs to be put into it. That included having the proper software version on hand along with the duplicate records so you can quickly recover at a relocation site. At any rate, it’s all in the book, so it may look like chaos but it all should be going according to pre-determined plans.
Yes, in light of the scope of this disaster, I overcame my usual reluctance to give money to The Red Cross. Even though both US Senators from Texas (Cruz & Cornyn), as well as 6 of that state’s Congressmen, voted “no” on disaster relief for NY & NJ in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, I can’t be as crass as they are–hence my donation yesterday.
Another option is the United Way of Greater Houston. I’d trust them to see your dollars get put to good use.
The problem is it isn’t easy to forecast the path of a hurricane. It isn’t clear that one will hit an area until at most a day before it is scheduled to arrive. With Harvey, it was originally expected to move inland and slowly travel north through San Antonio and then towards Dallas. It took a turn to Houston. It’s like with Katrina. By the time you know how bad it will be, you are already flooded or stuck on an island. How do you move a couple million people in less than a day?
We get occasional blizzards where I live. Also, where I live (resort area) are many senior citizens barely able to live alone.
Some of these folks travel daily for things like dialysis treatments, etcetera. Others are on 24 hour oxygen provided by plug-in concentrators or use machines for apnea, COPD, etcetera. Furnaces for heating require electricity, as do water pumps.
Also, where I live we have electricity provided by a local rural electric cooperative with most of the power lines supported by wooden poles. The area is heavily forested and power lines are difficult to access in the best of conditions.
Fragile people have letters from doctors placing them on a priority list when electric service goes down, but it’s no sure thing that power will be restored soon.
I have a police/fire/emergency (including electric utility workers) scanner that allows me to monitor activities continuously, even during blizzards (provided I fire up my stand-by generator). Ambulance runs are quite common.
Travel by emergency vehicles becomes impossible or nearly so during a blizzard. It sometimes takes days, not hours for all roads to be opened.
Trust me. Blizzards can kill day or night. They are inconvenient for me and are often quite scary, but for the vulnerable they are deadly.
CSA
My wife is from a rural area in South Dakota. When I first visited her farm, a storm came up and the power went out. They brought out the kerosene lamps for light and had an oil heater in the basement if needed. Plenty of food stocked etc. They could go for weeks without anyone from the outside. It was kind of interesting for a city kid like me to see how self-reliant they were.
LOL, having lived in North Dakota, I’m betting they didn’t need a refrigerator either!
I wouldn’t move back to that part of the country, but the people there are great people, and very innovative and self-sufficient. If the power goes out, they don’t panic… they see if their neighbors need anything… 
As to why the mayor of Houston didn’t call for an evacuation, an explanation I saw posted by someone from Houston with EOC experience:
- Experience from hurricane Rita 12 years ago when evacuation was advised ended up with several hundred thousands of cars gridlocked on the roads.
- Houston area roads and parks are designed to be temporary water control channels and basins in that pancake flat coastal zone. This works very well in typical t-storm downpours. But nowhere can handle 3 to 4 feet of rainfall. If roads were gridlock stalled full of cars for 60+ miles there would have been thousands of folks drowned in their cars.
- Leaving roads open in critical hours before the hurricane’s arrival allowed the immediate shore communities to evacuate inland from the tidal surge zone.
- There would not be nearly enough gasoline available to fuel cars to evacuate millions in only a couple days.
Yup, blizzards can kill. I had my first heart attack immediately after snowblowing my driveway! 
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Too many died trapped in their cars on I-90 and rt-128 after the Great Blizzard of '78. Too many major blizzards are followed by deaths from accidents and heart attacks. It’s a well known cause of death in the northeast.
Yes I would do the same , the seats wouldn’t even both me with some covers after they dries out good in the sunshine, its the computer and wiring issues that can occur , my daughte purchase a car that came from a flood area in florida , a 300ZX Nissan and when we looked at it you could put a glass of water on the engine and noi shaking . so after about 2 months things started going , it broke down wouldn’t start , . dealer put it on a computer said its air flow meter $600 later wouldn’t start in cold weather , fuel regulator changed $250.00. 1 month later back to no starting and stalling on road. , so guy from Nissan made friends with a mechanic comes over with a new computer , still same problem . now he says back to for diagnosis again $100.00 all new wires ignition $400.00 then 3 months later transmission goes , $1,700.00 rebuilt tranny . got the thing sold before anything else started . never heard from the buyer .so go figure. I think the only luck you’ll have is with a flooded car not over the computer area .
Re-Read my post. I never said Blizzard can’t kill you. Just extremely rare the storm is going to kill you while you’re sleeping in bed. A hurricane, Tornado and Earthquake can easily kill you while snuggled up in your bed.
https://www.google.com/amp/amp.usatoday.com/story/619785001/
Estimating half million vehicles ruined.
Saw a video of two mud-bogging pick-ups pulling a half submerged military heavy truck out from where it was stalled. I’ll never look at mud-bogger trucks the same again!
Yeah going to lease a new car this weekend, will have a bit of an overlap, but offer expires 9/5, and I am afraid the high demand for replacement cars will mean a lot less great offers.
There are good deals on cars since the most popular vehicles are mostly SUVs or pickup trucks. Good luck with the lease. What are you looking at?
Toyota rav4, xle trim package no money down, 12k miles a year $270 a month.
I have a 17 RAV4 LE. I didn’t like the XLE because the sun roof takes up about 3" of head space in the back seat. I’m 6’ tall and my head was almost in the roof while sitting in the back seat. Overall a good car so far. Have 30K miles on it now. Only complaint is the gas tank capacity is too small and mileage is overstated in real life driving. Realistically my wife gets about 24 highway because she drives 80+. If you are not always in a hurry it will get high 20’s under normal speeds.
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Right now, everybody is panic buying gasoline and stations everywhere are sold completely out in the Austin and San Antonio area. You can tell which stations still have gas by the long line of cars queuing up to buy gas.
It’s like a run on a bank. Gas is sold out because everybody is buying it up and everybody is buying it up because the stations are sold out. Our shop had a hard time making deliveries because drivers couldn’t find gas for their trucks.
Fortunately, it’s really difficult to stockpile a meaningful amount of gasoline, and I believe this too will pass.
About 2/3 of the stations in Dallas are out. Major run on gas before the holiday weekend.
Price gouging going on too.
I heard someone is selling bottled water for $8/bottle and someone else is selling gas for $20/gallon. I cannot imagine gouging people who have just lost everything, whose lives have been destroyed and who’ve possibly lost loved ones. There’s a special place in Hell for these people.