Typhoon Chanchu Roars Toward China Coast

[phantom power]

HONG KONG - Typhoon Chanchu, packing 98 mph winds, veered to the east Wednesday and spared Hong Kong before roaring toward mainland China's southern coast, where local media reported more than 180,000 people were evacuated.

(...)

The typhoon, the strongest ever reported in the South China Sea in May, was heading toward Hong Kong earlier this week, but it changed course overnight, swirling about 140 miles east of the city Wednesday. The storm kicked up high waves and spawned squalls but caused no major damage.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060517/ap_on_re_as/asia_typhoon

[Boomer]

1. How reassuring

>> The typhoon, the strongest ever reported in the South China Sea in May... <<

Wonder what's in store for us this hurricane season.

[Skarbrowe]

2. I'm starting to put together a get out of town suitcase(s) now.

I've stayed through all the hurricanes in South Florida for the past eight years. I've already told my housemate that the first time we are even close to the "cone", I'm grabbing my stuff, heading north and possibly never coming back. These suckers are just too big and deadly now. No more riding them out.

Hope China doesn't get slammed too badly. Good to hear people are evacuating.

[Boomer]

3. Do you own or rent?

Not being nosy (well, not much), but if you own I'd suggest leaving while real estate is still a salable commodity in Florida.

Before too long, a few years at most, house insurance will be prohibitively expensive (if available at all) and buyers may be fewer.

[Skarbrowe]

5. House-mate owns. I sold my house up north, so I can leave. Where?

Much truth to what you are saying about insurance and everything else involved with living in the path of these monsters. Hurricanes had been in a relatively inactive state for about thirty years and I guess the millions that are in Florida now are just waking up to the fact that hurricanes are now going to be unbelievably awful for the next decade or more. Have friends who had lived here over 30 years and had never had any damage that amounted to anything. Wilma almost destroyed their home. They're up there in years and don't really want to move. Same with my housemate's parents. I sure hope they all still have homes by this Thanksgiving.

I'm ready to leave Florida. Just too lazy and not sure of where I want to go. The first big one coming this way will get my butt in gear. uh huh! Crazy thing is, that there seems to be weather related disasters everywhere now.

[Boomer]

6. Pick a disaster, any disaster

Let's see: mudslides and earthquakes on the West Coast, fires and droughts in the West, with periodic flooding or drought and tornadoes in the MidWest, or just plain old flooding in the Northeast and hurricanes in the Gulf and Atlantic seaboard.

And that's not even taking the Yellowstone caldera into account, or the possibility of a mega-tsunami wiping out the Eastern coastlines.

Feels a bit like being in a shooting gallery, doesn't it?

[phantom power]

7. Planets are dangerous places.

It's about time we moved out, and started to engineer our own habitats. Humanity is starting to resemble that 35 year old guy who lives with his mother, and still doesn't clean his room. Time to get out, grow up and get a job.

[cliss]

4. Well, it looks like they dodged a bullet....

but this is probably not the end of it. There will be more.....lots more.

It's becoming Darwin's Law, or the law of the jungle: only the most prepared willl survive.

[phantom power]

8. "dodged" might be relative

Typhoon Chanchu has killed at least 50 people in Asia, including 37 last weekend in the Philippines, where it destroyed thousands of homes.

There were fears the death toll could rise dramatically

The storm hit the coast of China early Thursday, flooding scores of homes and forcing the evacuation of more than 1 million people before weakening to a severe tropical storm.

The official Xinhua News Agency said eight people died and four were missing when mudslides buried two homes in coastal Fujian province. Three others -- including two children -- were killed when the storm made landfall near Shantou in the northern tip of China's Guangdong province, knocking over houses.

http://www.salon.com/wire/ap/archive.html?wire=D8HM9I580.html