by Joshua Krause, Ready Nutrition:

The dangers of going to a disaster shelter or a FEMA camp during an evacuation are many. Because of this, we’ve spent time attempting to encourage everyone to do their best to avoid both at all costs by having back up plans in place.  But there’s one more danger of going to a disaster shelter that is perhaps the most disturbing of all: sexual assault.

So just where exactly do sexual offenders go during a hurricane? According to some reports out of Florida, sex offenders in each county are given a designated location that is separate from general population shelters. Most of the sex offenders under state-wide community control are being told they can report to their nearest prison or jail. Officials are also well aware that incidences of rape and assault become much more common in the wake of hurricanes such as Irma and Harvey. When state-wide evacuations for Hurricane Irma began, Florida’s Polk County sheriff announced that sex offenders would be banned from all shelters. “We cannot and we will not have innocent children in a shelter with sexual offenders & predators. Period,” he tweeted.

But what about those who aren’t convicted of a sexual crime but have plans to prey on the women at the shelter? They’ll obviously slip through the cracks and likely be able to hurt a few women without getting caught.  there’s just no way to know if someone might be a potential sexual predator. It simply isn’t possible to do a background check on all people who enter a disaster shelter after being evacuated.  It isn’t as if those who work at or volunteer at shelters intend to put people in harm’s way, in fact, they just want to help.  But there’s no way to police everyone at all times making a sexual assault a horrifying reality of a disaster shelter.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which struck New Orleans in 2005, many women came forward to report that they had been raped or sexually assaulted after being evacuated and their stories have been largely unreported. Charmaine Neville spoke to a local television station a few days after Hurricane Katrina hit. But she didn’t really want to talk about the storm much. When she took shelter on the roof of a school, she said, she was raped by a stranger. “I had lain down and gone to sleep and somebody woke me up,” she said in an interview with the TV station WAFB. “They put their hand over my mouth, and a knife to my throat.” Her rapist threatened her, saying: “If you don’t do what I want, I’m gonna kill you and then I’ll do what I want to you anyway and throw your body over the side of the building.”

The horrifying truth is that 80% of teenage girls who survive a sexual assault will also develop a mental illness (such as depression, anxiety, or post-traumatic stress disorder) stemming from the assault about four or five months later.  That’s even more reason to keep your daughter and wife away from the creeps we all know are out there.

Overcrowded and understaffed shelters put all those who stay at them at risk, unintentionally. There’s no way a handful of people can monitor hundreds of others at all times, as Neville sadly found out. A disaster can also put people in situations where they’re at greater risk of being assaulted; from living with an abusive family member to staying at a crowded shelter. That’s perhaps the biggest reason to take your safety and shelter into your own hands.

FEMA’s director, Brock Long, has even repeatedly warned that Americans do not have a “culture of preparedness,” and that’s why so many need the shelters at all. To avoid putting children and adolescents (and anyone in your family) in an environment that is dangerous and potentially hazardous is something that is much-needed with the startling uptick in natural disasters. FEMA themselves are telling you not to rely on them and admitting to making mistakes that could have cost people their lives. So how do you prepare for a disaster to avoid a shelter or FEMA camp?

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