Hurricanes, Take 2

More blathering about hurricanes

What is wrong with these people who won’t evacuate when they have the means to do so?

I just don’t get it. When I was told to evacuate in 2003 because of Hurricane Isabel, I packed the children, our clothes, important documents and photographs into our van and headed inland. Because we evacuated, everything I deem important was never in danger from the hurricane.

Once again, we have people with every resource available to evacuate choosing to do the opposite, and then whining when rescue services refuse to risk their lives to save them from a mess of their own making. One headline read, “Wilma’s Force Surprises Keys Residents.” The story was about residents of the Keys who chose not to evacuate, thinking that because the projected path was Florida, that the effects on the islands would be minimal. Where have these knotheads been all summer? Touring Cape Horn? Mars, maybe?

A properly working brain that has paid even a little attention to the weather maps as each new storm developed would have recognized that a hurricane is so much more than just an eye. There are miles and miles of super-thick, rain- and wind-producing clouds swirling with each eye. Considering that Hurricane Wilma, which is rampaging across lower Florida as I write this, is causing heavy rain here in Norfolk, Virginia, those in the Keys who stayed behind because they wanted to are, in my opinion, complete idiots.

‘Nuff said.