Every time it's like the first time, every time

Watching this hurricane irma stuff looks like almost no one was prepared at all.
WTF, for one it's happened before, a lot of times and 2 they had over a week of every national network and I can only imagine every local net works telling people it's coming.

 

Baby Sister and the West Palm Beach clan had all the metal hurricane shutters in place, evacuation reservations to Panama City, etc...etc... This isn't thier first Hurricane rodeo. But even with all of today's tech, by the time Irma flipped over to the Gulf Coast all the earlier preparations became null & void. They ended up riding out Irma up here in Northeast Florida with me. As it worked out Panama City ended up being within the cone of disaster and the Greater Jacksonville area wasn't.
Thing 2 and the Fort Stewart clan got evacuated by the Army to Myrtle Beach. Guess which area got hit harder? Go figure! Predictions are only that, PREDICTIONS. Even experienced folks can't accomplish all the preparations for every constantly changing prediction.
As things worked out Irma was in constant flux (about normal for a natural disaster) so the entire clan (minus Thing 2's family unit) ended up congregating here with me. During the week before landfall all the preparations where set and I'd be riding out Irma with all the clans pets. All the preparations based upon the PREDICTED PATH of Irma would have lead the clan into worse conditions than here in the Greater Jacksonville area which was Originally Predicted to be GROUND ZERO for IRMA. The triangle from the southern tip of Florida, northwest to Atlanta, and northeast to Charlotte ended up being effected by Irma. If all the roadways had no traffic on them, you couldn't have escaped Irma driving for 36 Hours from Maimi / West Palm Beach. It's hard to conceive just how many folks reside within the area effected by Irma, and they all wanted to be in a safe place so the log jam just compounded with every reevaluated prediction of Irma's possible path. Preparing for a possible Cat 5 Hurricane, just don't be where it's at when it hits. Just about as easy as not getting hit by lightening. LOL

 

Being in Florida you are up in a tree holding a metal antenna so its only a matter of time before you get hit by lightning.

 

Wasn't it Lee Trevino that suggested holding a 1 iron to reduce your chances of getting hit by lightning?
But I do swim better than I shead electricity. LOL.
"
After he was struck by lightning at the 1975 Western Open, Trevino was asked by a reporter what he would do if he were out on the course and it began to storm again. Trevino answered he would take out his 1 iron and point it to the sky, "because not even God can hit the 1-iron." Trevino said later in an interview with David Feherty that he must have tempted God the week before by staying outside during a lightning delay to entertain the crowds, saying "I deserved to get hit...God can hit a 1-iron."

Trevino said: "I've been hit by lightning and been in the Marine Corps for four years. I've traveled the world and been about everywhere you can imagine. There's not anything I'm scared of except my wife."

 

what is amazing to me is that a year later no one will remember this and all the people who are affect will still be tryig to recover their lives, in debt trying to rebuild homes, get TV and internet online and trying to recover financially.

we dont have 'rescue' operations for after the storm. Helping ppl recover 'after' up to a year after is a huge gap in our system. Instead we have Red Cross who barely feeds people and their CEO makes over $400,000 a year. I think im done with large organizations

 

The basically flat topography and north / south alignment of Florida puts the resident with evacuation in mind into "a corner." You can't go east or west far enough to make much of a difference when trying to escape from the wind effects of a large hurricane. The inland waterways and swamps of south central Florida limit the suitability of finding high dry ground that's easily accessible to the general public. If you have family or friends already located in such a spot, then you're better off than most folks in south Florida.

There's an old saying about hurricanes where you "hunker down, sheltering in place from the winds, but you run away from the rising flood waters and storm surge (if living on the coast)." That forces a person to determine what kind of event the approaching storm will be for him or her based upon that person's physical location, and the predicted nature of the storm event (mostly wind event, or mostly rain and flood event). Then you act accordingly with preparations to support that action (hopefully already in place). Of course, if you are expecting extremes of both wind and water, then the decision to bug out is usually a good one.

The keys to bugging out, as alluded to in previous Monkey posts, are choosing the correct direction to go, and having enough time to successfully do so. Once you leave your home, you put yourself and family on the road, and at the mercy of crowded highway conditions, limited motel vacancies, limited fuel availability, and whatever "dot gov" shelter rules that are mandated, should you end up in a shelter. Again, it helps to have friends and family located elsewhere on high dry ground where you can hunker together rather than become a dot gov refugee---if you have a choice in the matter.

The two most recent storms, Hurricane Harvey (mostly rain & flood), and Hurricane Irma (mostly high winds and coastal storm surge), are classic examples of each storm type. We folks in coastal Texas had more geographic options to head toward as Harvey approached, but other than the Corpus Christi / Rockport area, most of us sheltered in-place. The weather services did a good job notifying us that Harvey would be an extended rain event that would result in flash floods for certain parts of southeast Texas.

Flood became the major disaster for most affected Texas people, and that is a sneaky, but sudden on-set disaster (one or two days lead time at best). You can experience days of rain and begin to think all is well, until you waken to water seeping into your living room. Friends I've known for years never expected to ride in a boat out of their cul-de-sac, or have to wade out of the water with a few personal effects to shelter wherever there was space provided. There's a lot of that kind of misery to go around....

I can only imagine the stranded-on-the-Florida-highway stories we will all hear about in the weeks and months ahead. They will likely reinforce our own convictions to be prepared not just with food, fuel, water, self-defense, and sustainable shelter (at home or elsewhere), but with the best up-to-the-minute information to help in the decision process of whether to "GO, or NO GO."

 

What constantly gets me is the people AFTER a hurricane repete the same mistakes they made the storm before, they ether have no clue, no common sense, or get duped into repeating the same thing! Boggles the mind, and then to continue to live there, ether knowing it can happen again, or completely oblivious to the fact that what they are rebuilding this time will need the same again! Then there those who sort of prepped, but are now completely cut off and we see most are quickly running out of stuff and have little help to come, and no way to go to find any thing!!! Many lessons here for those observant amongst us, best laid plans and all!!!!

 

I would go easy on the hurricane people.

You can have 100 years of food, water, and fuel stocked up...but none of it matters if it's all blown away or under water. And you can't haul much with you if you leave.

The case can be made that one should not live in Florida to begin with because there really are no good options when a hurricane comes along. That's not realistic, though. The West has earthquakes and forest fires. The Midwest has tornadoes. The North has long cold winters. You can always come up with an excuse to avoid someplace, and when you're done, nothing is acceptable.

 

I'm in eastern new Mexico and the tornado threat is about as high as most of the east coast.
The only way to almost completely avoid tornados and hurricanes or typhoons is move some where that will freeze your ass off every single winter.
You can't even move to Maine to get away from hurricanes, every 20 years or so they get slammed by one.

I'm not saying don't live in florida, it's a pretty nice place, the gun laws are good and the weather is nice, I have been to Miami and herbie field.

I say find a house design that suffered minimal damage for your area and copy that design. Have a generator, with gas and other prepps put up some where it won't get swamped.
Maybe just don't live right on the beach.

 

Unless you voted for hillery.

 

It was an an old school club....I doubt that even Lee wouldn't have been silly enough to tempt electricutive fate with a carbon fibre club.

 

Back in the early 90's I was up at Spinney Reservoir in South Park trout fishing. It is a very wide open area prone to some good mountain storms. I had launched my belly boat and was about a mile or better from my truck when a boomer was coming in. made it to the shore and started carrying all my stuff back to the truck. Had my belly boat and fins strapped to my back and was carrying my 8 1/2 foot graphite fly rod in my hand. By now the storm was upon me and lightening strikes were pretty close at times. All of a sudden by hand carrying the rod started tingling. I could feel it through the rod. I threw it as far as I could and took off. Climbed down a small bank and sat on the belly boat til the storm passed. I honestly think that was the closest I may have come to getting struck.

Colorado Parks & Wildlife - Spinney Mountain

This is a great place for world class trout and Northern Pike fishing. At least it was when I lived up there. Some of the best lake fly fishing I've ever had.

 

There might be a few more people living, had they had the same presence of mind. I sat through an electrical storm in an army training area...somehow throwing my rifle away was not the most cool thing to do...particularly for an officer...fortunately I was surrounded by 30 or so other lightning conductors so the odds of mine being struck was somewhat less.

 

Few weeks ago a storm blew up over head, coutured it's self out of no where. I was 40ft up on a boom lift, I had just cut down the tallest object, then my GFIC starts tripping for no apparent reason. That means it's past time to get down.