Will they require IDs at the shelters?

Well, in Polk County they want to see your ID to see if you have any warrants.

In a series of tweets Wednesday, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd at first said sex offenders and predators would not be admitted to evacuation shelters, where identification would be checked.

He later widened his scope and included anyone with an outstanding warrant: “If you go to a shelter for Irma and you have a warrant, we’ll gladly escort you to the safe and secure shelter called the Polk County Jail,” Judd tweeted. “If you have a warrant, turn yourself in to the jail — it’s a secure shelter.”

He added: “We cannot and we will not have innocent children in a shelter with sexual offenders and predators. Period.”

I understand that.

ID isn’t the solution to keeping predators away from children. Most child molesters don’t have records. And it’s inhumane to turn people away for lack of ID.

Instead, how about having people watching out for the safety and well-being of people in the shelters, one of whose job is to make sure no one is doing anything bad to other people? No ID involved.

USA loses yet another point for backward authoritarian nonsense at the expense of people.

Yes. It’s the parent’s job to keep an eye on their kids.

You make some excellent points @Zaku. Not all people who are capable of molesting children have records.

And there are all sorts of other things to worry about as well in such a situation, so you want to be paying attention to the shelter people so you catch the many situations that can come up, and keeping people safe in all sorts of ways, which should end up covering child safety along with the rest of it. ID-checking may be useful but excluding people for lack of it seems extremely foolish to me.

Perhaps they have a backup shelter for those.

I have mixed feelings about it.

Parents should watch their kids, yes, but parents have to go to sleep at some point, too.

But the animals will be in there whether they know it or not. The only ones who can be filtered are those with legal records. Most of them don’t have that.

I have read that some places are asking.

Getting rid of one at each location is at least something. I think it is the right approach.
Some people might even be frightened enough of the storm to just turn themselves in. It sounds unlikely, but I have honestly seen it with less threatening circumstances.

I hope so. This storm is a golden opportunity to catch parking fine dodgers.