An Attack Of Sanity
For years in this area people were lax about hurricane preparation and that has led to some very dangerous moments when storms have struck. People have refused to evacuate from known danger areas when it was safe to to do so, and then expected to be rescued when the storm was exactly as warned, and was tearing their house apart.
Even though Ida has turned out to be a lot less dangerous than first thought, local governments moved to minimize the risks. The Pensacola News Journal covered closures in the West in Panhandle braces for Ida, and the Northwest Florida Daily News covers the East in Businesses, schools, bases close for Ida.
I can guarantee that officials will be receiving flak from people who will feel that all of the closures were unnecessary for Ida. These are the same people who will call to be rescued after they lose their roof and the wind is gusting over 100 mph.
I would also remind locals that if your area is subject to flooding, this is going to be a rain event, if nothing else, and you can expect the local rivers and creeks to rise. Depending on how slowly it moves, we can have severe flooding in the North County.
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I can’t help thinking of the Galveston hurricane of 1900. An estimated six thousand people died, mainly because in those days there was no long-range warning available to give people time to get out. Today, many storms are almost as bad; people are given plenty of warning, but they don’t get out. I understand better than most people the inclination to “hunker down,” but sticking at home in the face of a really bad storm is madness.
Hunker down may be the correct choice, but it has to be made based of facts, not what some guy in the bar said.
The big thing was keeping the school buses off the roads during a wind event on wet roads. They are just too easy to get blown around. Vans and SUVs are nearly as bad. Driving across a humped bridge in an SUV with wind and water is just asking to end up in the bayou.
Driving across a humped bridge in an SUV with wind and water is just asking to end up in the bayou.
i loved my little toyota of many years ago, but it was a true lightweight [part of the reason why it got 40mpg]. more than once i inadvertently changed lanes at the top of a bridge in rough weather, even though the car didn’t really have a high profile.
Empty full-sized pick-ups will really get squirrely in a cross wind. With all of the weight biased to the front wheels, the back tires seem to look for an excuse to break loose.
The fire department has been busy responding to accidents, as the water slowing drains off the roads. You would thing that with all of the rain we’ve had for the last few years, they would be flushed out, but some roads become lakes with a ¼-inch of rain.