Jette has a couple of very interesting posts on the hurricane Ivan and the potential impact on New Orleans, and Brian commented in my comments section below how he didn't see how we got used to all the hurricanes coming through here (or rather, dealing with all of the flooding and damage.) Truth is, we get so many terrible thunderstorms here, it's just plain normal. My mom and dad have a couple of friends who have re-done their house something like seven or eight times because they're in a flood zone and they have gotten nailed by some terrible flooding. They pay for flood insurance and go through a lot of hassle, but this area is home (to all of their kids and grandkids) and they wouldn't dream of moving. We've been lucky enough to have never lived in a house which flooded or had flood waters regularly blocking our street, but I know a lot of people who aren't so lucky. I'm not sure that I could live like that, to tell you the truth.
It's funny, because as bad as the hurricanes or big storms can get, with today's access to the media / news and technology's highly accurate forecasting, we typically know a huge storm is on its way long enough ahead of time to take precautions. Lots of families are old hands at sand-bagging (piling up bags of sand at all doorways or entrances to their homes to prevent flooding if their lawn gets flooded but it's only just high enough to get in a door's threshhold.) A lot of people feel like there's enough beauty here and culture and family tradition / ties that they couldn't picture themselves living anywhere else, and since they can at least prepare for the big storms / hurricanes, it's a small and decently rare occasion that they'll get harmed by the weather and since that liklihood is so low, they're willing to risk it. And I can see their point. I, on the other hand, cannot fathom living in an area where the earth could just up and decide to move somewhere else while I'm standing on it, or a tornado showing up without much notice and destroying random things in its path, or a blizzard burying everything and having to battle all that snow to get out... those things seem way more impossible to me. I guess it's all what you're used to.
As I said to Jette on her blog, though, I'm afraid that since we've dodged yet another bullet, more and more people are going to decide not to leave next time, (especially this time since so many tried to evacuate and it took an insane number of hours to go somewhere that's normally just an hour away. New Orleans keeps dodging the huge hurricanes and the potential to be 20 feet under water, but I don't know if its luck will hold. What I'm afraid of is that next time, people will remember all too well all of the aggravation and expense of trying to evacuate and decide "screw it, it's not worth the effort" and get caught in the really big one. (Of course, that's a movie right there. I'm sure someone who does end-of-the-world scenarios... probably even Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich already have someone writing it.)
Posted by toni at September 17, 2004 12:54 AMI know a woman who lived in a flood plain for fifteen years but was just high enough to never get flooded. But she said her neighbors who lived lower down were very practical about it. They felt like they got new carpet and some new furniture free every 8-10 years, and knew how to protect the important stuff.
As for tornadoes, y'all have a lot of risk of tornadoes during hurricanes. And where we are, it's rare to get caught by surprise by a tornado (though it can happen) because of radar and because every radio and tv station broadcasts constant updates when there's threat of tornado, and we almost always see the system moving into the area.
But you're right, it's all what you're used to.
I'm glad y'all dodged that bullet.