The US is not ready for this upcomming hurricane season

As the season looms, it's becomming more and more apparent that the US is not ready for this upcomming season.

I was fortunate enough to travel down to Marathon Key (on behalf of Mark Sudduth and hurricanetrack.com) this weekend to help out at a Hurricane Seminar there. This was my first trip into the Keys in some 14 years or so.

The upper and middle Keys have really changed. Well, all of them have since my last visit, but, there is a ton of new construction there with perhaps billions of new residential developments down there. Surrounding these beautiful and vurnable estates are poorly constructed commercial store fronts of every type you can imagine. Many are built from metal or sheeting, there are billboards everywhere and in many places, residents down there have been allowed to build their own home over time with little regulation or oversight.

So as I stood there at the momument to the 1935 hurricane there in Islamorada, surrounded by all of these things on a 2 lane road out of the Keys, it is very obvious. They Keys are not ready for this season, and our country isn't either.

Every Keys resident I spoke with said really 2 things. They estimate only 15% (at most) of the residents evacuated for Wilma, and there have been too man false alarms in the last few years.

Since 2004, the keys have been cleared out for Ivan, Jeanne, Rita, Katrina and Wilma and I think I am missing one storm.

How many places must also think there have been too many false alarms? Just about every hurricane prone city has had one in this active phase:

Houston last year with Rita New Orleans countless times (now they have the opposite problem) Tampa with Charley Miami with Jeanne, Frances, and Ivan ...And so on...

So as we stand less than 4 weeks from the next season, there are more problems. Accuweather is out there predicting doom and gloom for the subscriber-heavy Northeast. An NHC false-alarm email has aleady sparked panic in New Orleans. Many places in SE Florida haven't recovered from cat 1 winds in Wilma, and there are countless blue-tarps in place in SW Florida from Charley 2 years ago. Perdido Key hasn't recovered from Ivan. Mississippi is still clearing debris from Katrina with many who were lost still yet to be recovered or identified in Lousiana. The levees around Lake Okechobee, protecting residents and water supplies and ecosystems, are given a 17% chance of failing in any season.

And littered all over the Gulf and Eastern seaboard are communities that haven't experenced a direct hit in generations.

The NWS meteorologist at the seminar, Matt Strahan, has a very good point which he shared with me after things wound down Saturday. Most people think they know what a hurricane can do. Many more people than not, even in areas with direct hits, have not experienced the inner core of a strong or intense hurricane, but they think they have. This may be the most dangerous thing of all, and many, including Max Mayfield, believe that this type of belief system may have caused Camille to kill more people in 2005 than Katrina did.

Finally, there is a sense of disbelief taking over with the new season closing in. 17 storms? That number in any other season before this one would have caused panic. This season, outside of New Orleans, that number is considered GOOD NEWS.

Chances are we are going to get hit hard somewhere this year. Some will tell you they know where, which is of course, BS, but we are probably going to get hit again.

If it's Houston, we'll be wishing for 3 dollar a gallon gas prices. If it's a hurricane in Miami like 1926, the death toll from surge and evacuees who didn't leave could rival Katrina. If it is the NE US, well, we will look back on 2005 like we look at 2004 now. Bad, but not as bad as it was a year ago. And if it is the Keys, well, I've seen it, it will be bad beyond any current standard.

All anyone reading this post can do is this. If you're reading this, you likely follow the tropics closely. Start talking to everyone you know about hurricanes. Discuss what you know about surge, about the inner core where the most destructive winds are, about the outlook for this coming season. Ask them about their plan. Help them find a place to go if they need to evacuate. Sign up to help with rumor control hotlines or help lines, every community has these and they need all of the help they can get. Talk them out of bad ideas like "riding it out" or "hurricane parties".

At the same time, be a model of preparation. Get your shutters or plywood now. Get your supplies ready before June 1st. Know where you are going to go if you have to leave. Don't try to ride it out on your own...etc.

We know the media won't help. But even if you talk to 2 extra people, and change the way they think about hurricanes, you've made a huge impact.

This is a bigger problem than any one person or organization or city can solve. Years of run-away real estate, poor building regulation and poorly advised and unsafe costal development combined with a very unlikely lull in activity has built this monster. We all can affect our sphere of influence however, and help prepare and protect the people we know and care for.

And given everything we're up against, that's the best we can do. Even if the country isn't ready, we can be.

I wrote his after Andrew, whose path was eerily similar to that of Katrina. That should tell ANY sane person that THIS WILL HAPPEN AGAIN AND PROBABLY IN LESS THAN 12 YEARS GIVEN THE MORE AGGRESSIVE HURRICANES IN THIS CYCLE. And this cycle is predicted to last another 15 years!!

Simply change some of the names.

If they rebuild NOLA on the present site – and DON’T get folks OFF THOSE BEACHES ALONG THE ENTIRE HURRICANE-PRONE U.S. COAST -- keep this for the NEXT catastrophe. Insanity is defined as doing the same things over and over while expecting a different result. Whom God would destroy, He first makes insane. Has this nation lost its mind? Look to NOLA – BUILT 8 FEET BELOW THE SURROUNDING WATERWAYS – for the answer for that. If NOLA is rebuilt, those low-lying areas ought to be allowed to revert to their original state as wetlands and swamps. The folks necessary to operate that vital port and petro/chemical infrastructure need to live in reinforced dwellings ABOVE future anticipated flood levels.

And now that Rita is here, it is time to consider turning a 10 to 15 mile strip of our hurricane prone coastal areas into RV parks or campgrounds with MINIMAL SEMI-PERMANENT – and I stress “SEMI” -- STRUCTURES. Anyone building a structure in that strip is ON HIS OWN RE. SHOULDERING THE FINANCIAL LIABILITY FOR ITS LOSS!!!

WHAT GEORGE SHOULD HAVE SAID
by Dick Bachert

On the evening of September 1st, 1992, President George Bush went on national TV to announce that the already empty federal coffers would pour forth uncounted billions of dollars to totally rebuild the Florida and Louisiana communities destroyed by Hurricane Andrew. A vast majority of Americans seem to agree with this action, providing yet more evidence (as if more were needed) that we have come very, very far from the philosophy of self-reliance articulated by one Colonel Davey Crockett. (See "Not Yours to Give" available from FEE at www.fee.org)

Instead of attempting to purchase his reelection with plundered resources, this is what George Bush should have said.

"My fellow Americans:

As you all know, a devastating hurricane has struck the southern tip of Florida and Louisiana. Our hearts and prayers go out to all who have lost so much.

“There is now a great cry for the federal government to "do something".

“And we shall.

“I have dispatched otherwise idle military resources -- men and women involved in our national defense who will profit from what will amount to a real-life field exercise -- to the area to render whatever aid the local authorities deem appropriate to restore basic communications and public safety infrastructure. But, beyond that, we can do little else. Before you brand me a heartless monster, allow me to explain:

"The area involved has been regularly struck by many such storms since long before we have inhabited this continent. There is reason to believe that this pattern will continue. All who have vacationed or visited there will agree that it is a beautiful area and by driving a short distance, residents there can avail themselves of the ocean waters and sandy beaches of that coastal setting. I, too, understand the attraction. That's why I spend as much time as possible
in Kennebunkport. That's the upside of living in such an area.

"The downside is that the area is regularly struck by these terrible storms. Which is why responsible and intelligent residents of the area insure their property against the inevitable resultant damage.

"That the largest private insurers have determined that certain of these areas are so likely to be struck by storms such as Andrew as to make them "actuarially unsound" risks is a matter for the insurers and the property owners. Government will only, through the lawfully established court system, do its best to see to it that any contracts between these private parties are honored.

"If a prospective property owner is unable to secure private insurance against these calamitous eventualities, he or she had better reevaluate his or her position. If a prospective owner cannot bear the financial loss which would flow from the destruction of an uninsured home in one of these high risk areas, he or she is well advised to purchase in an area where such insurance is available. It is not, nor can it ever be, the government's place to levy a compulsory tax on citizens who do not live in these high risk beach areas to subsidize the folly of those who choose to do so! It would be criminal to force citizens who themselves already pay hundreds of dollars each year to protect their homes from
normal hazards such as fire and the occasional tornado to also pay for the beach front lifestyle of others! To increase their taxes so that some of their less responsible fellows may enjoy the benefits of living in these normally
beautiful -- but statistically periodically dangerous -- surroundings is unconscionable.

"As much as our hearts go out to those who have lost so much, I must remind them that just as it has happened in the past, it will happen again. If you chose to remain there, you do so at your peril. This is an election year and the temptation is great for me to obligate the already strapped taxpayers of the entire nation to pay for the rebuilding of these damaged areas.

"Though it may cost me another term as President, I must, because of the dangerous precedent it would set, resist it. To do otherwise would be the grossest unfairness to, say, a citizen in Kansas whose roof might be blown off during a tornado. Would that citizen not have the right to ask the federal government to do the same for him? Multiply that by the numbers of isolated, individual-but equally calamitous disasters each year and you will come to see that the treasury of even the richest nation on earth (which, thanks to decades of such nonsense, we no longer are) would soon collapse under the load.

"On a technical level, I would also remind you that expert analysis of the destruction of these homes quickly disclosed that it was government and the building codes -- rather the false security of their enforcement -- which led to the loss of nearly 85,000 dwellings. You who now look to government to solve your problem ought to consider that it was the failure of the government mandated building code enforcement that reduced your home to a pile of rubble. Your reliance upon government enforcement of these codes and their assiduous observance has proven to be an error.

"In that connection, I would point out that engineers who surveyed the damage discovered a number of structures which survived. It was found that these buildings had been built under an older, ostensibly less stringent code and/or were constructed using a number of proven, but more costly, techniques designed to improve survival.

"If you do plan to rebuild in one of these uninsurable sections, please, in order to minimize the destruction the next time another killer storm comes ashore, employ these construction techniques.

"Let me now turn to what we must now do to help those in such desperate need at this moment.

"I submit that we should continue and intensify what we've been doing thus far: The volunteer activities many of you have undertaken as individuals, small businesses and large corporations are doing exactly what I envisioned when I
launched my "Thousand Points of Light" campaign. What we need now are millions of such points. And, if the response continues to swell as in the past few days, we'll get there.

"Let me also remind you that the first folks into the area with meaningful relief were not government people. As we have seen, these huge bureaucracies possess equally huge levels of static inertia. They lack the flexibility and
sensitivity to function efficiently. People helping people is the highest embodiment of the faith our forefathers brought to these shores over 300 years ago.

"America was -- and, I fervently believe, still is – a nation of people who understand this basic concept. It is time we remembered that government's role is to only do for citizens those few constitutionally limited things we cannot
individually do for ourselves. I'd remind you what George Washington said about government: "Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. It is force! And like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."

"It is also time for us all to remember that we must take individual responsibility for ourselves. We must remember, for example, that we cannot construct our homes in places where the forces of nature periodically rage against us without adequate preparation for those periodic rampages.

"To be more specific, if we must build in those areas, we must take personal responsibility for the soundness of construction and/or insure against the certain eventuality that these natural assaults will occur. The days when
individuals can look to a government to force the rest of us to underwrite the folly of the few are gone! I urge those of you now digging out from the destruction in Florida and Louisiana to remember that as you consider your future. I pledge that if you grant me another term in office, I shall devote my next 4 years to bringing government back under the United States Constitution in order to ensure that it does only those few things we cannot do for ourselves and does them as efficiently and effectively as possible.

"Let me again urge us to continue the enormous volunteer efforts we have already begun until this tragedy is behind us.

"Thank you and good night!"

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.