About those who "ride out" storms, weathermen, and perhaps why

[Atman]

I'm almost originally from Florida. I grew up on the Atlantic coast, Cocoa Beach. During my sixteen years on that tiny barrier island, separated from the mainland by the Intracoastal Waterway, another island, and two large humpback bridges contecting the town to the mainland, I rode out every storm we had until, I think, David (I might have the name of the storm wrong). Most people rode out the severe storms, because they NEVER seemed as bad as the weathermen claimed they'd be. Never. But, when David came along, they were saying, really, seriously, this could be really bad! So, looking across all that open water on either side of me, with no way to the mainland when the two-foot-above-sea-level causeways flooded, I decided there simply wasn't any reason to chance it. When I came home after the evac, a tree had fallen on the side of my house, right on the electric panel, ripping it from the wall. My bathroom window was knocked out and the bathroom filled with a foot of mud and debris. And I had a wicked hangover from the hurricane parties.

But still, knowing how bad this storm was, why didn't everybody leave? Hmmm. Then I look at all the people being interviewed on CNN...they all seem to be poor as dirt. I've yet to see a family in their Humvee saying "Well, we had the Sub-Zero on a backup generator to keep the brie fresh, but we feared for our wine collection, so we chose to stay." Nope. I get the feeling that a LOT of these people really had no choice but to ride it out. We find it easy to say "Hey, they shoulda got in their cars and left!" But we aren't in their shoes.

A lot has to do with "the Ivan Effect," to be sure. Storms never seem to happen the way we're told they're going to, be they monster blizzards in the NE or hurricanes in the south. Perhaps modern weather predicting technology has made us think we have some more control over nature or something. But in reality, it only seems to make matters worse, as meteorologists and weather-readers use that Super Doppler as props, and they've made us think they're infallible. Except they're always wrong.

Except when they're right.

Maybe from here on in, weathermen should stick to predictions, and let people know that "WE JUST DON'T KNOW WHAT THIS WILL DO, DESPITE THE PRETTY PICTURES!" Stop pretending you're so certain, as this storm didn't even track as you predicted. Just go back to the good old days -- I knew enough to evacuate Cocoa Beach way back in '78, without "street level Doppler," just based upon common sense. Bring some common sense back into weather reporting, and stop pretending Doppler radar gives you a hotline to Mother Nature. Admit you know nothing, and THAT is the reason to evacuate...not because you know everything. That just sets up the Ivan Effect when you're (inevitably) wrong.

[seabeyond]

1. i have money i can do it. still do i want to use safety on hotels food

and loss of income. now, this hurrican i would leave. but someone who goes paycheck to paycheck,..... i can certainly see them saying, you know have rent next week to pay.

[SteppingRazor]

2. I'm not "poor as dirt," but I'd probably have stayed too...

I live in Southeast Florida (Katrina knocked out my power for a couple days, in fact), and it'd take a Cat-5, Hand-of-God-comin'-at-ya type of hurricane to get me to leave. I mean, it's your home, you know?

[ewagner]

3. Hurricane Donna, 1960

Sort of surprise us because it started going into the Gulf and then cut straight back up through the center of the State....

ONE meteorologist predicted that path even with the comparatively primitive forcasting techniques of the time...

I remember in the aftermath, somebody asked my father if we would have evacuated if he had had more warning. He said, "How?" we had no money and no place to go.

[msongs]

4. except the storm did track as predicted ->

if you read the original NOAA reports, they plainly state on most reports that there is a track deviation possibility as much as 30 or more miles in either direction due to variables NOAA cannot predict. Of course those reports are prostituted by various media for various purposes.

did you read the post the other day condemning NOAA for putting out a report warning of extreme damage (flying cars, 30 foot surges)? The poster claimed the NOAA was going way overboard with exaggeration. Uh it turns out the NOAA report was pretty accurate after all.

Msongs

[jobycom]

5. NOAA was perfect on this one, from two days out.

They had the storm going assure right where it did.

[jobycom]

6. I don't know about the poor, but there is another angle to the media

The media overhypes every storm. I've seen them stand outside in their cute little raincoats to show minor hurricanes coming assure, and using the most bombastic hyperbole. "This storm is hell on earth. This storm is an awesome display of power." Yadayada. Those who have been through a lot of hurricanes roll our eyes at the hyperbole.

The problem is, people hear all these stories about how horrible these average storms are, and they assume that's as horrible as it gets. They aren't prepared for a truly horrendous event. They assume they've seen the worst nature has to offer, because the media has told them that, so they assume they can bear this out.

Plus, this storm did things that no other storm in recent times has done. From stories, the Galveston storm and the Florida Keys storm may have been this bad, but the storm surge on this one was unprecedented, and combined with the large size and therefore the excess rain, this was truly an unprecedented flood. Regions that survived Camille were wiped out. People who thought they were safe weren't. This hurricane flooded Hancock County all the way to I-10, which is miles inland. That means the little brick house I was born in, which survived Betsy and a direct hit from Camille, may have finally been wiped out. People who thought they had evacuated to safe ground in this one didn't survive.