Any sane thinking person has to have at least a little bit of sympathy for those folks. But, at the same time, they live in effin’ shacks. I’ll go out on a limb and say that the Bahamian building inspectors and code enforcement guys aren’t all over the place making sure these areas are built to whatever code they have down there.
A co-worker of mine has lots of family in Puerto Rico. He has said that they storm was pretty bad, BUT, the area that got hit the hardest were the shacks and the shanty towns. He said that the rest of the island, especially the resort areas, bounced back in no time and weren’t hit that bad compared to some of the rhetoric that went around. In fact, lots of folks have been going there for vacations, as they PR tries get the money flowing again and pretty much everyone has said it was great.
Does anyone not understand that cnn was hyping the storm to drum up interest in their climate debate? They are liars
You and some other people on here have some serious first word bias. Do you think these people choose to live in a plywood shanty? How exactly are they supposed to afford a house built to cat 3 hurricane standards? It’s no different here either. Do you know how many people live in mobile homes because they can’t afford a house that meets the required hurricane codes? Are they better off?
Your points are well taken during fair weather, but in an approaching Cat 5, have little relevance, IMO.
During a mandatory evacuation it’s the responsibility of the individual, their families, and the LOCAL AUTHORITIES to have a PLAN to help evacuate the poor, elderly, disabled ahead of the storm.
NOBODY should attempt shelter in place, REGARDLES of the type of structure. Both strong & flimsy structures can collapse & any structure can flood.
In New Orleans, homes survived but people drowned in their attics.
I went on a cruise in January 2018 that stopped at PR, St. Thomas, and St. Martaan. Of the three, PR was not great. Nobody faults them a few cruise ships each day as they rebuilt. PR had eight cruise ships in port and a festival in San Juan while people were still suffering horrifically from the storm. It seemed a lot more effort and resources should’ve been spent helping those less fortunate residents. St. Martaan, St. Thomas, and St. John all had much more balance, and with obvious repair going on.