Evacuating in disasters like Hurricane Milton isn’t simple – there are reasons people stay in harm’s way, and it’s not just stubbornness

Evacuation is more difficult for people with health and mobility issues. Ted Richardson/For The Washington Post via Getty Images

As Hurricane Milton roared ashore near Sarasota, Florida, tens of thousands of people were in evacuation shelters. Hundreds of thousands more had fled coastal regions ahead of the storm, crowding highways headed north and south as their counties issued evacuation orders.

But not everyone left, despite dire warnings about a hurricane that had been one of the strongest on record two days earlier.