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I think these people don't believe they are in "true danger". I think their position is strengthened when they see news crews and weathermen in their area standing on the beach or pier hoping for the eye of the storm to blow them over for a good news clip.
The media likes to hype everything and not all of us are snowflakes that run at the first sign of danger. I would have drove to the storm to watch if I lived down there. So what if I die... People place too much importance on living to age 100.
what is true danger. living in a concrete house at elevation 80 or being on the highway with a ten gallon tank and no money, no fuel and no where to go. its a calculated risk and most people are safer to stay where they at, no counting water front, low flooding areas. not everybody need to leave, not everybody have the means and money to leave
I have been in 17 hurricanes and never had any damage but raking the yard
I just have to wonder about people like my 75-year-old stepmom. She has this attitude of "oh, well" towards this very dangerous hurricane.
She lives by herself in Fort Myers on a canal, her house doesn't have its windows protected or boarded up, and yet she thinks that everything is somehow going to be okay. It's probably too late for her to go to a shelter, as they're all already full. She's not close to her neighbors at all, and my dad passed away over two years ago.
I was urging her to get out on Tuesday, to fly somewhere else, and she called me an alarmist. "They don't even know where it's going to go yet." Well, they do now - straight at her.
A friend of mine has an aunt on the other side of the state who has the same cavalier attitude. "I'll be fine!" What is wrong with these people who see the graphics on TV, listen to the weather forecasts, but somehow their denial is stronger?? Sure, they'll be fine - until they're not. There are people planning to stay in the Keys, even though weather forecasters are urging them to get out, because it's probably not a "survivable situation".
I'm obviously very frustrated; I wish I could have convinced my stepmom to leave. I don't want to think about her trying to drive anywhere else now; it's probably too late and hotel rooms everywhere are full. I guess I just have to hope and pray that somehow she'll survive.
Only parts of Ft. Myers were under mandatory evacuation, emergency directors knew what areas were subject to flooding and the storm surge. In other areas, evacuation could have made the situation more dangerous as evacuation routes would have been even more clogged and resources strained. Building in Florida are concrete block and generally pretty sturdy, as my house was in Florida. I would say if she was younger she made the right decision, shelter in place...but she is 75. A family member should have traveled over to help her board up windows and ensure her safety (as an alternative, we would tape up windows with masking tape to at least keep them from shattering and spraying the house with slivers of glass). A local shelter would have also made sense.
However, rest assured from what I read, and given the circumstances and path, Ft. Myers escaped relatively well. I expect she lost power and will be without power for awhile. Don't pay attention to the media hype and news reports that seem to enjoy reporting armeggedon.
I don't see this as all part of "denial", some of it is a result of media over-hyping a storm again and again. Some of it simply enough is a logical risk assessment - the dangers and loss of comfort of evacuating if you are not required to evacuate exceed the dangers of staying. Now - for those in the evacuation zone...the keys, staying is just crazy. Those is key west got lucky as well, with the storm passing slightly north. News reports say people were walking duval street Saturday night after the storm passed just like any night, probably partying...power was out of course. Not sure what happened in the other keys.
I think these people don't believe they are in "true danger". I think their position is strengthened when they see news crews and weathermen in their area standing on the beach or pier hoping for the eye of the storm to blow them over for a good news clip.
Well, actually, the eye of the storm is the calmest part of the storm, so it wouldn't be the eye that would blow anyone over.
There are good reasons to stay, and good reasons to evacuate, and if people have been through a storm or two or three, you learn what to do to be prepared. It's a calculated risk.
I attribute it to the incessant hype. How many times do we hear "this one will be the worst", "you will not survive", etc., only to see mild rain and wind.
People get sick of the nanny types telling them to be safe and flee, then it turns out to be for naught.
On top of that, you've got people that simply "lose their s__t" when the brunt of the storm will not even affect them. There's no reason our shelves in Charlotte should have been run so hard over the past week. But people went nuts.
Listening to people at work get all keyed up taught me a valuable lesson. I don't want them on my team when the chips are down!
We're discussing hurricanes and typhoons on another forum, and one big issue is that windows get blown out. In some Asian countries, they build apartment buildings with typhoon-proof glass. The US should start requiring that, in these hurricane corridors, even if the big ones "only" come along once/10 years.
Many places in Florida have hurricane windows that can handle 155 mph winds.
Hindsight is always 20/20, but remember that no one knew Irma was weakening significantly over Cuba.
My stepmom's house is definitely not that sturdy, and she took her chances by not even having her windows boarded up (she has a bay window in the living room that I was very worried about). She's very fortunate that this storm blew out most of its energy before reaching her area.
I do understand people who have obligations - jobs, family, etc. that keep them from leaving. My stepmom had none of those reasons; she could have taken a little vacation and saved the rest of us a lot of stress and anxiety. I don't think she understands that she was lucky this time, and might not be lucky next time.
She lives in Zone B, and the mandatory evacuation order went out on Saturday morning. That's what made me a little nuts. On the other hand, she's also an older woman who is by herself, and maybe she felt more vulnerable going to a shelter. I don't know; we haven't talked about that yet. I'm sure her cell is out of power by now, and the regular electricity has yet to come back on.
Isn't it better to take a hurricane seriously and get out of the way if you can? Seriously, playing chicken with a storm like that doesn't seem like the wisest idea.
The problem is that every time there's a storm in the Atlantic, the local news starts announcing how horrible it is and we will all be wiped out. Then, the storm turns and fizzles out, and we barely get any rain. It's the little boy who cried wolf. Anyone who's lived in the area for more than a few years and heard the same gloom and doom several times.
I am in an evacuation zone and chose not to leave. It's not about "playing chicken" with a storm, it's about making an informed decision. By the time the evacuation is issued, it's already too late. You can spend hours (or days) on the road. With no hotels available in Florida, roads jammed, and no gas in some areas. Or, potentially, moving into the storm. I know people who left south Florida to go to Tampa, and found themselves right in the path. Flights out of the area jumped from about $300 to $1,500.
South Florida has some of the toughest building codes in the country. New homes must have impact windows or shutters, along with a variety of other codes that came into existence after Hurricane Andrew. Most homes here are CBS and have either already survived a hurricane, or were built with strict building codes.
Every area has it's own natural disaster. I can't imagine living in California and all of a sudden having the ground shack. But, I don't tell friends they need to move, because it could be life threatening. There are tornados, floods, wild fires, mud slides, earthquakes, snow storms and a variety of other "gifts" from mother nature. The biggest difference is we have a warning days in advance and time to prepare.
I would much rather stay in my home, where I have supplies and am prepared vs. being stuck on the road in my car.
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