TV news said that she said the barriers had been partially pushed aside, and I think it was nighttime. Maybe she did too much wishful thinking based on that, but it's a little more understandable than with an intact barricade.O Really wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 8:44 amSo I've seen a lot of pictures and articles about Florence, and some of them left me wondering - what were these people thinking?
Yeah, I know - sometimes you're trapped in deep water because it's the only way out. Sometimes you had reason to believe the water wouldn't rise that high...whatever. But the woman who lost her 1-year old drove around the fricking barrier! And why are so many people caught totally unprepared? Hurricanes give you lots of warning, in addition to being more prevalent in particular areas anyway.
Here's what we did - probably billy.p, too:
1. Realize that it's a very real possibility that you're going to get some severe storms and/or hurricanes from June to November. Gonna happen. Maybe severe, maybe light, but you're gonna get them.
2. Had plywood covers cut for each window/door; marked for where they go, with screwholes drilled, screws inserted, and a drill/screwdriver stored with them. Took less than an hour to get them all installed.
3. As regular maintenance, cut down weak/overhanging tree branches, palm fronds, etc.
4. Make sure all drainage routes from the gutters stay clear.
5. Fill up vehicle gas regularly, never lower than a half. Store several jerry-cans in the garage.
6. Get a generator, and all the cords necessary to run your stuff. Run it frequently enough to keep it in condition and be very comfortable using it. If I was doing it over, I'd probably get a larger built-in version, but the 5000-version we had worked fine.
7. Keep a regular stock of food/water necessities. Rotate it from time to time, but keep enough to avoid starving or significant misery for a week.
8. When the technology became available, we digitized everything we might need - documents, etc. We also digitized old photos.
9. Store valuable jewelry and some cash in an easy to grab and go container.
10. Keep a "bug-out" bag for each family member, with necessary supplies, clothing, food for a few days, along with emergency tools - flashlight, knife, etc.
11. If you're going to leave, leave ahead of the crowd.
None of this is particularly expensive or out of the ability of most anybody who lives in a hurricane area. IMNVHO, unless you just moved in last week, there really isn't any excuse for being at Home Depot buying plywood two days before the storm. There really isn't any reason why you'd have to be in a gas line the day after the storm. There are few reasons why you'd need to have food brought in by the national guard.
I agree with you for those in the coastal wind/storm surge zones, and I have some of those practices in place even though the worst that's ever gonna happen here is loss of elec./heat for a few days in an ice storm. I credit part of that to 30 years of living in the mountain West. "Disasters" happened several times each winter, not once every few years.
However, this was unprecedented Harvey-Houston scale rainfall - over 3 feet in some places. I can understand how some weren't ready for that. For example, there never was an evacuation order for Wilmington's 120K people, yet it was or still is completely surrounded by impassable water.
Edit:
It would be interesting to know what percentage of the people have needed the help we've seen on the news. Of course that's going to get covered and major resources are going to be expended providing the assistance, but if it's, say, 5% of the residents or less, maybe people are never gonna be better than that, for whatever reasons.