Posted on 06/01/2006 8:26:54 PM PDT by Valin
MIAMI, June 1 (UPI) -- There were no tropical systems moving off Africa toward the Americas Thursday, the first day of the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season.
Max Mayfield, director of the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami, has been campaigning for weeks for the more than 34 million people who live in storm-prone coastal areas to begin preparations, USA Today reported.
He's concerned with a survey of 1,100 people by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research that found more than half don't feel vulnerable to hurricanes, and 3-in-5 have no family disaster plan.
Referring to last year's devastating strike by Hurricane Katrina that struck the Gulf coast, Mayfield said he hopes lessons were learned.
"The folks there in Mississippi and Louisiana who made a conscious decision not to evacuate were not just tempting fate, they were playing Russian roulette," Mayfield told the newspaper.
The peak of hurricane season normally is mid-August through October, and storms in June and July occur once every other year, records dating back to 1886 show.
Forecasters predict up to 16 tropical storms this year, eight to 10 of them hurricanes and as many as six of them major, meaning a Category 3 or higher with winds of at least 111 mph.
Woo-Hoo!
How long is it going to take to get to the partridges and the pear trees?
They are really going to go all out with the breathless reporting this season. It will make "crying wolf" seem like the good old days.
This whole premise is hysterical. Was it Algores idea?
Katrina actually made landfall much reduced from its Cat5 status, it just stayed organized longer than usual as it worked on in.
This sort of story ought to be embarrassing for those who thought it newsworthy.
i'm kind of hoping for florida to be destroyed by a volcano moving in from the caribbean, roaring through jacksonville, and finally settling outside of atlanta and burying it with lava ... or is it not volcano season yet?
Volcano season doesn't (offically) start until Aug. 19th.
What to do? Where to go?, and Oh my, What's next?.. The dreaded Bird Flu pandemic?! Oh mercy me! What are all our elected officials doing to abate my angst over such weighty matters? I'll just wait right here in jittery timidity for to be rescued. What else can I do?
So is this going to take the place of "24" for the summer?
Oh, the suspense!!!
Stop trying to convince yourself it won't be so bad.
I'm feeling so good right now even Episode 5.1 couldn't depress me.
Did you ever see "Something Awful's" take on hurricane preparedness? It came out the day after Isabel hit, and it was hilarious.
No, I didn't.
The pictures are gone, but the article is still there. I thought it was pretty doggone funny, and I saw it right after we got slammed by Isabel.
Good idea for a daily thread?
Day 2: (looking around, tapping foot) Hmm hmm hmm. Nope, nothing happening today.
I swear, the weather people are positively SALIVATING about possible death and destruction. They'd manufacture the ultimate storm if they could! It's disgusting.
The local guy starts out the weather by pointing to ANY little swirl of clouds in the ocean and says- ' Uh,oh...what's this..?" then waits a bit and says- ' Oh, it's nothing.' Then he proceeds to say people shouldn't get paranoid or worked up till you have to!!
They're the Doom Patrol- especially re. New Orleans. It's as though they can't WAIT for the K.O. punch that wipes the Gulf Coast clean.
Re. Evacuation- Any place you have to be prepared to run from for half the year- and stay gone weeks at a time- is no more than a temporary city.
It kills me to hear people say 'everyplace has bad weather'. Oh really? When was the last million person evacuation for a snowstorm, or an earthquake? I don't think people in Ohio think of August and September as months in which they are most likely to face losing their homes or lives.
The countdown continues...
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.