[KRAKRISMOTT]

Not really, evacuations by car are very common in most suburban areas. You are thinking in city-centric terms. Most of the US and Australia are not 5 minute cities with subway stations located a stone throw away from your house.

[tsudounym]

That's because the US and Australia are run by brain dead individuals (and the voters who enable them) who let the train system they had crumble into disrepair. Even the famously corrupt Ukrainian government did a much better job at multi-modal transport option. The Ukraine refugee situation is the best example of how refugees should be evacuated in the event of a catastrophe. if they did it all by car, it would've been absolute chaos and lead to many more causalities.

Sources: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/05/world/ukraine-railwa...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/magazine/ukraine-trains.h...