Hurricanes and perspective

[lighter]

I have a friend with 2 sons on Virgin Gorda.  She's terrified, and her terror is solid, and appropriate. 

My oldest dd has a friend on Puerto Rico.

My niece is on a plane fleeing Florida, and another friend's parents are driving from Coral Gables to stay with him.

I'm worried about all the people, and how they'll cope.  Texas is still under water, and struggling. 

I'm praying for the Hurricane to turn or dissipate.  That's all I can think about today.

Lighter

[Twoapenny]

Oh, Lighter, thoughts are with you and your loved ones, Mother Nature is so beautiful and so destructive at the same time.  Hope people can stay safe xx

[lighter]

The boys are safe!  We just got word😀

[Twoapenny]

That's great news, Lighter, I'm really glad to hear that xx

[sKePTiKal]

Mike & I took our 2 week vacation in OBX, 2 days after Isabel blew through - it levelled trees from the spun-off tornados all through the mainland counties up into Tidewater Va. We ended having the rest of his family show up - his uncle had died and he & his brother were pall bearers - the next couple counties inland.

We stayed for Irene and watched our creek completely empty itself (normally a 5-6 ft channel at the end of the dock); out of power (had whole house generator) and cell service for 48 hrs after).

I was moving up here, when Matthew tore a track from Florida to the OBX - first it was supposed to turn out to sea in SC; then Wilmington; and all we'd see would be tropical storm effects... and it was still a full-blown Cat 1 when it came past my place. The storm set me back 2 weeks in my schedule.

Each storm is different: it's predictability, it's effects: damaging winds vs storm surge vs draining the sound - and a tsunami effect when the water rushes back - vs heavy rain. There are some common sense steps to take to be able to weather the storm and not even be all that uncomfortable afterwards - as long as it's a low-end storm. Starting with your exact location. People can HAVE that waterfront property, as far as I'm concerned - I've seen what the ocean can do in a short amount of time. Having easy access, but being protected from the worst, makes more sense to me.

So, Cat 1 or 2, I'd figure on hunkering down in my storm-proofed house. Cat 3 - would be evac decision time. Above that, and I'd be "gone" long before people were done emptying the stores and boarding up.

So imagine my surprise to wake up here in the mountains one morning, after a storm... to find 3 large pines across the driveway. LOL. Turns out it's windier here - more often, stronger winds - than in Kitty Hawk. None of us get out of this life, alive... and there is no where completely "safe". People simply choose what they're willing to deal with from location, weather, etc.

[Hopalong]

I hear you, PR, where I am we get "sprinkled" with big heavy trees and now and then a major storm causes serious property damage. I remember when a woman in her 80s in my parents' neighborhood had a massive tree branch come through the roof and hit the bed while she was in it. Barely missed her. There were trees on smashed roofs all over, miracle nobody died that storm.

To my mind, sea level rise is in a different category from wind damage. Globally, climate change is going to make some coastal areas uninhabitable and lead to huge population shifts, economic disasters, massive loss of life especially among the poor, new refugee migrations and ultimately, if we don't do something about human responsibility for climate change, resource wars.

The biggest single thing an individual can do is to stop eating meat. It's a very tough goal but one I revere. I still use animal foods but lowered my consumption drastically over the last decade.

If enough responsible people reach positions of power and can persuade or inspire, maybe there's hope. Hard to envision with a government attacking the environment, but maybe next round. Apocalyse no?

I hope so. Stay safe and I hope your near-house trees have been arborist-approved.

Hugs
Hops

[lighter]

This morning Florida is still in the line of Irma at Cat 4 status.  Winds should reach all the way to Tennessee, which is beyond where my house sits.  I'm afraid to see what's happening on Bimini, which I'll look up next. The house there sits just feet from the water, but that's just a house.  Where will the people go to be safe?  The dock in Miami is located away from the water on a canal, but I expect there will be huge damage, if not complete destruction, but that's just a dock. 

Amber, I remember packed cars and trucks with tarped trailers fleeing Mathew last year.  They were driving through our area, on the highways. 

We had one big tree go down that bordered the woods.... not near our homes.   The river flooded it's banks and shut down roads nearby.  Since we sit at the end of a cul de sac in a very wet area we get a lot of water, and the drain between my property and the elderly neighbor's must remain unclogged.   I'll clean it again today.

Things are beautiful here now, though we've had a ton of rain over the past few days.  It feels like fall, and was in the forties last night.

Tonight into tomorrow Florida will start to see the first of the winds.  Sunday they expect 100mph winds.  8 - 12 inches of rain all the way in to Georgia. 

I'm so grateful my friends and family are safe, and notice no one in this area seems concerned with storm prep.  (I've been preparing for years just to feel level.)  Everyone here is filling donation bins for people in Texas. School kids are having penny jar wars for Texas.  We should have started bins and jars for Florida too, IMO.  Sometimes I get into a loop.... we should be preparing to help Florida we should be preparing tohelphelphelphelpfloridaweshouldbepreparingpreparingpreparingpreparing and then I stop myself... stop the chant in my head, the single minded worry, and go about my beautiful day wondering why I feel so much concern, and sometimes guilt. It's what I DO, I realize.  I go back to the basics, and try to start again.

I wish I'd had every limb over my house taken down after Mathew.

Hops:  Oldest DD16 is on her seventh day of cleanse.... no meat.  I notice eating hearty vegetables is very filling, and will be trying cauliflower rice soon.  If we can sustain carbs once a week, and meat very rarely that would be a good thing, IMO.  That's A LOT of vegetables.
Youngest dd would have the biggest problem making that shift.

Thanks for the support, Tupp.  I notice self care goes out the window, and it's hard to breath when waiting to hear people we love are safe. 

Lighter

[Hopalong]

It's overwhelming, the storms.
Sometimes I wonder if it's a sea change (no pun meant) for humanity.
The big picture gets too huge for one set of human eyes.

I am glad your friends there are safe, Lighter. Worry is misery.

And bravo for your DD! I have zero virtue or superiority when it comes to diet. I just keep trying to re-aim at what I know is good. And really do admire those who manage it without letting it become an obsession. I have found the huge, multi-vegetable salads help a lot with the carbs/sugar cravings. They're not gone but if I just keep making those my main daily focus, they sure have reduced.

Stay dry!

Hops

[sKePTiKal]

I found I couldn't keep up with all the posts on the storm-watcher threads I was following online this time -- and I didn't even WANT to. So much "doom & gloom" -- expression of fear and exaggeration of imagined conditions.  :shakes head:

The northern part of FL got off easy. It was still a storm; still made a mess & knocked out power - but it's not the end of the world. Southern part took harder winds and lots of water. Different story there. But the authorities were forcing the homeless off the streets to protect them - even against their will, but for their own good. I don't know what I think about that - but I understand they really did mean well. If they HADN'T done that - well, I'm afraid there would be a lot of fatalities.

No one's really been able to get into the Keys yet.   

I don't think it does a person much good to let their imagination run wild and jack up fear to almost panic levels, like I was observing in some posters. People have to learn to be a little more skeptical (ha!) about what they see on tv and read. There were a lot of videos posted as if they were Irma - but proved out to be from other storms, other years. I was little worried about the storm; a Cat 4-5 is nothing to play around with. And people with any medical needs or physical limitation simply need to be out of that area - they won't be able to do what needs doing, on their own. But then, as a ham operator - we go on the air as back up emergency communications to the emergency management teams. I know what kinds of things to expect.

Common sense - and adequate preparations - can give a person a good chance at getting through these storms, with just more yard work than normal. Harvey was different, of course. All that rain! All those days! Each storm has it's own unique challenges, I've found. I think Florida did a pretty good job, overall - and the governor went above & beyond trying to help people evacuate the worst areas.

Lighter - maybe you can volunteer for the emergency response teams? Join CERT, maybe; volunteer at a shelter? That would let you "help" person to person.

[Hopalong]

My fav [sarc] broadcaster, Limbaugh, said that the National Weather Service and other meteorologists are part of a conspiracy related to bottled water sales, and that storm predictions are always over-hyped. He sneered his way through hours of pre-storm coverage.

Then a day later he evacuated from his Florida home....

Personally, I was pretty impressed with most meteorologists I saw who never said we guarantee it'll stay a 5, or 4, but who kept telling viewers over and over to take this one very seriously. As stressful as the mass evacuation was, it was the right thing to do, imo. Emergency services would be more overwhelmed afterward even if folks could ride it out...because the crises from clogged roads and cleanup without residential power would just keep mounting up.

The hardest thing to watch was elderly folks being evacuated in less than gentle fashion, though it certainly was better than leaving them knee deep in water, as happened in that one home in Houston. I think folks were for the most part profoundly selfless in these storms.

Bad things do bring out the best in us, in many ways. Good folks helping anyone in need far, far, far outnumber those who take advantage.

fwiw,
Hops

[lighter]

Ok...a little info on the cement structure with steel doors where my friend's sons sheltered on Virgin Gorda.

The doors "began crumpling in and out.". Son said he tried to hold on to the door handles and the pressure took  his breath away.  He couldn't breath. 

They had sustained 185 mph winds....son said it was a level of physics he didn't understand, and his heart felt like "a fist shoved to his feet.". He thought the pressure was going to tear him apart. 

The doors eventually gave way, and I haven't heard where everyone was when that happened.  Everyone survived, that's the important detail.

We lost power for a while and I had to drive under three diwned trees held up by power lines to get girls to school.  Debris everywhere of course, but not much damage of property here.

My brother had a tree crumple part of his house and deck in GA.
 
Lighter

[Hopalong]

Aack! Your brother and friend's son were so lucky. 185 mph! Holy s**t.

I'm glad that kind of direct damage didn't hit you, Lighter.

Whew.

Hops

[lighter]

They said we had winds about 35mph.  I can't imagine what sustained 100 or 185mph winds would have felt like, and I don't want to.  Most of the downed trees over roads were leaning over the roads to begin with.

My brother was sleeping at the other end of his house when the tree hit, thank God.  The entire corner of the house is open to the sky.

The Virgin Gorda group must have been behind interior room doors that held.  One son is unable to talk about it.  He's shell shocked.  The son who stayed behind to help is the one reporting details, which are terrifying. 

Lighter