Comments on: Tropical Storm Noel

By: hipparchia

hipparchia — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 05:21:05 +0000

the best opal evacuation story among my friends was the dad, three teenagers, two dogs [one large, one small], a cat, and a bird.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 03:07:41 +0000

I only had one cat in the cab of a Toyota pick-up for Opal, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.

By: hipparchia

hipparchia — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 02:10:33 +0000

of course, that going 100 miles inland to avoid the worst is predicated on there actually being buildings 100 miles inland, empty ones and lots of them. i missed out on all the fun of riding out a hurricane in a car full of pets on the highway, but i hear it’s exciting.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 17:55:44 +0000

Although, you would think that with all of the damn practice, the powers that be could organize things in a more reasonable fashion. They have allowed all of these people to build along the coast and still haven’t improved the evacuation routes. Running all of the major roads parallel to the coast means crossing a lot of rivers on brides that may be wiped out, rather than building any significant roads inland, away from the effects of the storm.

It would be really wonderful if they admitted that trying to guess where in a 200 mile stretch of coast a storm may hit is not as efficient as knowing that if you go 100 miles inland you can avoid the worst.

By: Steve Bates

Steve Bates — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 17:27:17 +0000

Well, yeah, honestly, non-major hurricanes are more tractable, and anything may be better than wildfires. Familiarity with hurricanes hasn’t bred contempt; I still have a lot of respect for them… but if one has to have some sort of seasonal disaster, my familiarity with tropical weather, just knowing the drill, is some comfort.

And yes, I’ll probably stick here for the work possibilities, what’s left of them.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 14:57:53 +0000

Hurricanes do provide a bit more warning and predictability.

By: hipparchia

hipparchia — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 04:33:33 +0000

i’ll take hurricanes over wildfires, any day.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 04:31:24 +0000

It does wear on you, but you have to stay near the work unless you can arrange to do it all on the ‘Net.

By: Steve Bates

Steve Bates — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 04:26:14 +0000

No rest for the weary. Noel has turned into a T.S. since I last looked early this afternoon. I suppose I need to subscribe to some high-volume email list just to catch the beginnings of these things.

Let’s hope it curves north and east away from any coast, as predicted. Jeff Masters reports that it’s already drenching part of the Dominican Republic, quite possibly resulting in dangerous floods.

Maybe this will be the year I move somewhere far from a coast, and take my chances with fires, earthquakes and/or tornadoes. I’m getting too old for this hurricane watch-and-wait game.