We need hurricane education, folks!

[hedgehog]

We've seen too many broadcasters standing out in the wind telling us about hurricanes. It's not the wind that kills, it's the storm surge. Call it a flood or a tidal wave, it's the water that's the problem. People need to be educated about this whether they deciding to evacuate or deciding to build a home. Thy also need to understand that a Category 1 storm is still a hurricane!

[jwirr]

1. No matter how much education you do

there will still be people who cannot evacuate on their own: elderly, disabled, poor.

[hedgehog]

2. Agreed.

I'm concerned mainly with the people moving into threatened areas like so many lemmings. Why is the US population shifting into such hazardous areas.

[HeeBGBz]

3. Because they make big money on insurance when it blows away

Buy up the coastal property and wait for a windfall.

[moobu2]

4. My bro in law did that, he admitted it to me

He lives in an area which has flooded on average every 3 years and he makes a huge profit every time and laughs about how much he made.. He does the reconstruction work himself, pockets a bundle and waits for the next flood. People don’t realize that this kind of thing along with wealthy people wanting to have a home on the beach is what forces out insurance rates up so high. We all end up paying for these peoples decisions.

[hedgehog]

5. If you've been paying attention, there is no windfall.

The damage is from storm surges that the insurance companies won't cover and won't pay for after the fact. The only people making money are the ones selling wetlands as prime beachfront property.

[moobu2]

10. lol I live here, I know what happens.

I live a few minutes from The Gulf Of Mexico and personally experience this nearly every year. I also talk to a lot of people around here about everything. I know it's the water surge from a hurricane that kills. There are a few deaths from falling trees and car wrecks attributed to the storms every time one comes through but the real danger the massive water surge and flooding.

My bro in law and other wealthier people know how to work the flood insurance system, the others are out of luck. You cant tell me anything about it that I don’t know all too well.

[HeeBGBz]

12. Um -hum, I learned about it while living there

I betcha there's a heap of buying and selling real estate right now.

Any way to find data on sales?

[moobu2]

14. There may be, I just don’t know of any place.

[hedgehog]

19. If that's the case, why is the Mississippi state attorney general

suing the insurance companies? I had the impression most people weren't covered.

[pitohui]

21. yeah there is no windfall, this is a big lie

it's more louis vouitton handbag bullshit

ppl should be ashamed to repeat it

there is no way to make a windfall, insurance coverage has a deductible & you have to prove that you did the work or you don't get the final check, which is often short anyway because the insurance co. decides this & that is "depreciated"


been there, done that, it's like those peeps who claim somebody somewhere is making big money getting crippled up in car accidents, oh yeah, if this is so true, let's see them do it & show us how, the ppl i know in car accidents including myself never get sufficient compensation for what they lost

[AnnInLa]

9. Because it is home, and has been home to generations

and generations of my family and many other families. Why do people settle and live on earthquake fault lines? In "tornado alley?" In the far north where there are ice storms? What do you want? The whole population of the US settled into "safe" areas of the country? Ain't gonna happen. We are not the rich who build summer homes along the coast, we are families who call this home. When I have tried to live "inland" while attending college, or on a job, I got claustrophobia...need to be by "big water." lol, but true.

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. Wind does kill, though.. Which is why it is stupid of those reporters to

risk their lives standing around in the middle of some high-speed debris.

[hedgehog]

7. The wind is dangerous, but too many people think that if

their house is wind-worthy, there's no problem. We focus on wind speed instead of pressure drops at the eyes of the storms

[GreenPartyVoter]

8. Yes, I see what you are saying as far as the houses go. But rarely

are houses all that windworthy, either. Did you see the guy who built a fabulous hurricane-proof house only to have nothing left but iron girders and pylons? It was only built to withstand a cat 2.


I wonder if, in the presence of more and more savage storms we are going to see the abandoning of the coastlines around the world. I thought that would happen as the ocean level rises anyway, but now that I have seen the tsunami and Katrina, I think a series of cat 5 hurricanes pounding the same area over a short area of time might prompt an exodus of sorts. :(

[HeeBGBz]

13. Yeah, they wouldn't do that in my yard

With the huge collection of tin siding and roofs that seemed to be centered in a vortex that no doubt made my yard appear to be a big giant blender.

[porphyrian]

11. Well, the wind is bad, too.

It can stick a plastic straw in a tree an inch deep. Most of the deaths result from the storm surge, though. Or the flooding afterwards.

[RegexReader]

15. most deaths are from the subsequent tornadoes

but this last monster was essentially a 200 mile wide F3 tornado.

Fujita Scale for tornadoes

And I've seen on the front page of the Shreveport Times where the old paper straws were stuck through a pine tree like quills on a porcupine.

The kicker is that we're due a really get slammed the next decade due to the normal cycle:

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2005/s2484.htm">This confluence of optimal ocean and atmosphere conditions has been known to produce increased tropical storm activity in multi-decadal (approximately 20-30 year) cycles.

And with this increase, even people as far north as NYC need to be very very aware of what could happen.
NYC Office of Emergency Management

I shudder to think what would happen if Tropical Storm Philippe makes landfall between NYC and Boston.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/storm_graphics/AT17/refresh/AL1705W5+gif/145044W_sm.gif



RegexReader
$USA =~ s/Republican/Democrat/ig;

[tammywammy]

18. One of your links isn't working

This confluence of optimal ocean and atmosphere conditions has been known to produce increased tropical storm activity in multi-decadal (approximately 20-30 year) cycles.

Not working and I really really want to read it. :)

[petronius]

16. There is a bit of a misconception about that

The way a hurricane (or tornado) drives a straw or something similar into a tree is that during the storm the wind flexes the wood enough that cracks open up in the grain of the wood. The straw penetrates the crack, the winds dies off, the tree straightens up, and the crack closes around the straw. It's not quite the same as the wind stabbing the straw into solid wood (but I wouldn't want to be out in a wind that can bend and flex full-grown trees, either).

[BeFree]

17. You are right

People don't know much about hurricanes, as evidenced by the posts in this thread.

The wind can be as deadly and destructive as the storm surge. Hurricane Andrew proved that. What matters the most is location and the windspeed of the storm. The further in land you are the more the windspeed dies off and storm surges are nullified. Coastal residents are in far more danger than those twenty miles inland and away from water connections to the coast.

Hurricane Katrina was the first storm in modern days to hit a very populated area. Hurricane Andrew was a very compact storm and missed Miami by about thirty miles - not like Katrina which was a very large storm.

Hurricanes vary in size and velocity. But with modern weather information no storm should take anyone by surprise, especially a president. He is either an idiot or he was totally negligent, either way he's going down.

[pitohui]

20. everyone knows that already in the affected area

it is not lack of education it is the number of storms

i was in a tropical storm that smashed up my house, if the eye goes over, it can cause probs. even if it isn't a cat 1

you cannot live yr life panicking over every trop. depression, every trop. storm, or every cat 1 or 2

you do the best you can

we were told katrina was a cat 1 going to hit alabama/florida state line

then it's a cat 5 aiming for new orleans

& you know what?

we still got a helluva lot more ppl out than the simulations predicted

it isn't lack of education

it isn't stupid southern yokels

it is that we have to make a judgement call every time there is a storm because you cannot cut & run every time there's a trop. storm in the gulf or you will lose yr job & your sanity

hurricane season is six months of the yr every yr