Hurricane Idalia—Make it make sense

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It really is true about evac - unless you are flying away - driving is kinda not that effective. You have to relo pretty far away to miss the devastation if you had to evac in the first place. I have friends down in the Keys and they don't just evac, they fly and holiday for a few days way ahead of any major storm that's tracking their way. The trick is to get out way early and far. Otherwise, you're still going to be in a mess.

That's not true. You really only need to come a few miles inland to be safe. Authorities have been saying that over and over again. There are many shelters, typically in schools, where I am there are shelters for people with special needs and even pet friendly shelters. And free rides if needed.

Right - so if it starts looking like the storm is going to be the worst possible version, then OP's friend can go to a shelter. But mostly it's people who are in the most dangerous situations - and who don't have other options - who'd go to a shelter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well we can look forward to seeing her on the news and her harrowing tale of survival and complaints about not having any water.

She has four kids, one an infant, and lives on water. It feels reckless and her excuse weak. She’s very smug about it, too.

She’s single, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in an area where natural disasters were frequent enough that they didn't scare people like they do to people who aren't used to them. So I'm definitely familiar with that "eh it'll be fine" mentality (not that I agree with it)

I’m not debating evacuating or not, but her phrasing is ridiculous. If it turned S last time and avoided her, who is to say this one won’t also turn S and hit her directly?

Because the phrasing doesn't matter. She doesn't want to evacuate. So she'll tell herself whatever she needs to to justify it. Logic isn't part of it (not really).

I hope it works out for her!

It will 98 times out of 100.

Yup. She will almost certainly be fine and is making a rational decision. Is it fair to play those odds when you have 4 kids to think about? That's another conversation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in an area where natural disasters were frequent enough that they didn't scare people like they do to people who aren't used to them. So I'm definitely familiar with that "eh it'll be fine" mentality (not that I agree with it)

I’m not debating evacuating or not, but her phrasing is ridiculous. If it turned S last time and avoided her, who is to say this one won’t also turn S and hit her directly?

Because the phrasing doesn't matter. She doesn't want to evacuate. So she'll tell herself whatever she needs to to justify it. Logic isn't part of it (not really).

I hope it works out for her!

It will 98 times out of 100.

Yup. She will almost certainly be fine and is making a rational decision. Is it fair to play those odds when you have 4 kids to think about? That's another conversation.

What would you have liked her to do instead? And please be more specific than simply "evacuate" - where should she have evacuated? And when?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in an area where natural disasters were frequent enough that they didn't scare people like they do to people who aren't used to them. So I'm definitely familiar with that "eh it'll be fine" mentality (not that I agree with it)

I’m not debating evacuating or not, but her phrasing is ridiculous. If it turned S last time and avoided her, who is to say this one won’t also turn S and hit her directly?

Because the phrasing doesn't matter. She doesn't want to evacuate. So she'll tell herself whatever she needs to to justify it. Logic isn't part of it (not really).

I hope it works out for her!

It will 98 times out of 100.

Yup. She will almost certainly be fine and is making a rational decision. Is it fair to play those odds when you have 4 kids to think about? That's another conversation.

What would you have liked her to do instead? And please be more specific than simply "evacuate" - where should she have evacuated? And when?

She is in Pinellas County. Pinellas has an extensive network of shelter and many ways they communicate with residents about these things-they are experts in this! There is no way she CAN'T know.

In my county, I've been seeing info about evacuations/shelters since SUNDAY.

[Anonymous]

Op if you really cared about her, you would have offered to pay for her hotel or whatever accommodations she'd be evacuating to although I'm sure it's too late. All the inland hotels get filled up and you can imagine what the traffic is like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in an area where natural disasters were frequent enough that they didn't scare people like they do to people who aren't used to them. So I'm definitely familiar with that "eh it'll be fine" mentality (not that I agree with it)

I’m not debating evacuating or not, but her phrasing is ridiculous. If it turned S last time and avoided her, who is to say this one won’t also turn S and hit her directly?

I also live in Tampa Bay and am not evacuating, and let me explain this to you:

1. Mandatory evacuation orders don't apply to everyone in the area. They apply to people in certain evacuation zones. So evacuation zone A gets the mandatory order first - those are the people closest to the water. There are zones B, C, and D - these are further and further out from the water. You may get a mandatory order for more of the zones, the worse the storm is expected to be. Right now it's just zone A that's got the order in Hillsborough County, where Tampa is. We live in zone X, which means we are never mandated to evacuate, even though our county is under an evacuation order.

If you don't know what zone your friend is in, you don't know if she's been mandated to evacuate - and some people choose not to evacuate even if there is an order for their zone, for good and bad reasons.

2. Your friend is correct that we don't know where the hurricane is going to hit exactly, yet. Hurricanes move, they have uncertain paths. When we were new to Florida, we decided to evacuate for our first hurricane - which looked like it was bearing right down on us. We ended up evacuating across the state - and in the end, the hurricane hit where we'd evacuated to, and when we finally got home we hadn't even lost power here.

3. There are costs and dangers to leaving. The airports are closed and gas is hard to come by. You can only get as far as one tank of gas will get you - and you may end up stuck in traffic on the highway as the hurricane is coming. That is a worst case scenario. More likely, you get a hotel in Orlando - and then the hurricane hits Orlando. Or wherever. You can end up putting yourself in danger, trying to escape danger. For many many people, the safest thing to do is hunker down at home. That is not the case if you are in a trailer park, or a house right on the beach - but if you are inland at all, in a solid house, you usually want to buy flashlights, cookies, and water, and just stay put.

Your friend is making a rational decision - it may not be the decision you'd make, but it's not crazy. People outside of Florida don't really understand what it's like living with hurricanes. My parents still call asking me to go evacuate - and as many times as I tell them that there is nowhere to evacuate to, because you don't know where the hurricane is actually going to hit and you can only get as far as one tank of gas will take you, they still have to say it. So you're just thinking this through like everyone outside of Florida is thinking this through - but your friend is thinking it through like someone who actually lives with these storms.

Thank you for taking the time to write this explanation. I’ve never lived anywhere prone to hurricanes, so this definitely gave me a better understanding.

+1 I found this very educational!

+2

— a girl from Kansas who knows a lot about tornadoes and hail

I'm the one who wrote that treatise and thank you - I'm glad it was helpful! I would love to understand living with tornadoes better because I find them TERRIFYING in (what seems to me) their unpredictability. Should I start a new thread for questions - such as, how much are you always thinking about the possibility of a tornado coming through? How do you prepare for the possibility??

Also, OP, with so much wood knocked - it looks like Tampa Bay is going to come out of this all right

I dont know what's going on where your friend is - but here in St Pete we're starting to feel a little better about how this is looking. We won't really know till we know, but - this is better than what we were worried about. I hope your friend is going to be fine - and her house, too.

I wish I understood storm surge. They make a big deal about it but it's kind of meaningless if you don't live near the water. The thing that catches most of guard is how far inland the water will come. The only people who seems to know about that are the locals.

[Anonymous]

I grew up in Florida and only recently understood storm surge. Last year, people in Ft. Myers (not Ft. Myers Beach) who were inland lost their homes due to storm surge. It’s not just beachfront property. Florida has lots of canals and rivers. The Gulf of Mexico pushed water inland through the canals, which run through many peoples’ backyards, and up into their homes. Florida is flat so unless you are in a two story home (rare) or a high rise, you can’t escape to higher ground. You can really only go inland—you and everyone else evacuating. Storm surge basically means drowning in a wall of unexpected water.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in an area where natural disasters were frequent enough that they didn't scare people like they do to people who aren't used to them. So I'm definitely familiar with that "eh it'll be fine" mentality (not that I agree with it)

I’m not debating evacuating or not, but her phrasing is ridiculous. If it turned S last time and avoided her, who is to say this one won’t also turn S and hit her directly?

I also live in Tampa Bay and am not evacuating, and let me explain this to you:

1. Mandatory evacuation orders don't apply to everyone in the area. They apply to people in certain evacuation zones. So evacuation zone A gets the mandatory order first - those are the people closest to the water. There are zones B, C, and D - these are further and further out from the water. You may get a mandatory order for more of the zones, the worse the storm is expected to be. Right now it's just zone A that's got the order in Hillsborough County, where Tampa is. We live in zone X, which means we are never mandated to evacuate, even though our county is under an evacuation order.

If you don't know what zone your friend is in, you don't know if she's been mandated to evacuate - and some people choose not to evacuate even if there is an order for their zone, for good and bad reasons.

2. Your friend is correct that we don't know where the hurricane is going to hit exactly, yet. Hurricanes move, they have uncertain paths. When we were new to Florida, we decided to evacuate for our first hurricane - which looked like it was bearing right down on us. We ended up evacuating across the state - and in the end, the hurricane hit where we'd evacuated to, and when we finally got home we hadn't even lost power here.

3. There are costs and dangers to leaving. The airports are closed and gas is hard to come by. You can only get as far as one tank of gas will get you - and you may end up stuck in traffic on the highway as the hurricane is coming. That is a worst case scenario. More likely, you get a hotel in Orlando - and then the hurricane hits Orlando. Or wherever. You can end up putting yourself in danger, trying to escape danger. For many many people, the safest thing to do is hunker down at home. That is not the case if you are in a trailer park, or a house right on the beach - but if you are inland at all, in a solid house, you usually want to buy flashlights, cookies, and water, and just stay put.

Your friend is making a rational decision - it may not be the decision you'd make, but it's not crazy. People outside of Florida don't really understand what it's like living with hurricanes. My parents still call asking me to go evacuate - and as many times as I tell them that there is nowhere to evacuate to, because you don't know where the hurricane is actually going to hit and you can only get as far as one tank of gas will take you, they still have to say it. So you're just thinking this through like everyone outside of Florida is thinking this through - but your friend is thinking it through like someone who actually lives with these storms.

Thank you for taking the time to write this explanation. I’ve never lived anywhere prone to hurricanes, so this definitely gave me a better understanding.

+1 I found this very educational!

+2

— a girl from Kansas who knows a lot about tornadoes and hail

I'm the one who wrote that treatise and thank you - I'm glad it was helpful! I would love to understand living with tornadoes better because I find them TERRIFYING in (what seems to me) their unpredictability. Should I start a new thread for questions - such as, how much are you always thinking about the possibility of a tornado coming through? How do you prepare for the possibility??

Also, OP, with so much wood knocked - it looks like Tampa Bay is going to come out of this all right

I dont know what's going on where your friend is - but here in St Pete we're starting to feel a little better about how this is looking. We won't really know till we know, but - this is better than what we were worried about. I hope your friend is going to be fine - and her house, too.

I wish I understood storm surge. They make a big deal about it but it's kind of meaningless if you don't live near the water. The thing that catches most of guard is how far inland the water will come. The only people who seems to know about that are the locals.

I live in north Florida. I am not in the path of this one.
Storm surge -- If you live more than five miles from the water, you are safe from storm surge. If you live 2-5 miles from the water you are probably safe from storm surge.
The dramatic photos you always see on the news after storms are from the storm surge. It means a gigantic wave of water -- or 20 -- came along from the gulf or the ocean and went way inland where waves don't usually go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in an area where natural disasters were frequent enough that they didn't scare people like they do to people who aren't used to them. So I'm definitely familiar with that "eh it'll be fine" mentality (not that I agree with it)

I’m not debating evacuating or not, but her phrasing is ridiculous. If it turned S last time and avoided her, who is to say this one won’t also turn S and hit her directly?

Because the phrasing doesn't matter. She doesn't want to evacuate. So she'll tell herself whatever she needs to to justify it. Logic isn't part of it (not really).

I hope it works out for her!

It will 98 times out of 100.

Yup. She will almost certainly be fine and is making a rational decision. Is it fair to play those odds when you have 4 kids to think about? That's another conversation.

What would you have liked her to do instead? And please be more specific than simply "evacuate" - where should she have evacuated? And when?

She is in Pinellas County. Pinellas has an extensive network of shelter and many ways they communicate with residents about these things-they are experts in this! There is no way she CAN'T know.

In my county, I've been seeing info about evacuations/shelters since SUNDAY.

But there is no point in having evacuated to a shelter in Pinellas - and now the storm is probably mostly passing us by here in Pinellas! Being in a shelter would have certainly increased her chance of contracting covid right now but it would have been a pointless exercise in hurricane safety! At what point do you think she SHOULD have gone to a shelter? Can you name the right time here? And do you think that tonight she should still be there instead of at home?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in an area where natural disasters were frequent enough that they didn't scare people like they do to people who aren't used to them. So I'm definitely familiar with that "eh it'll be fine" mentality (not that I agree with it)

I’m not debating evacuating or not, but her phrasing is ridiculous. If it turned S last time and avoided her, who is to say this one won’t also turn S and hit her directly?

Because the phrasing doesn't matter. She doesn't want to evacuate. So she'll tell herself whatever she needs to to justify it. Logic isn't part of it (not really).

I hope it works out for her!

It will 98 times out of 100.

Yup. She will almost certainly be fine and is making a rational decision. Is it fair to play those odds when you have 4 kids to think about? That's another conversation.

What would you have liked her to do instead? And please be more specific than simply "evacuate" - where should she have evacuated? And when?

She is in Pinellas County. Pinellas has an extensive network of shelter and many ways they communicate with residents about these things-they are experts in this! There is no way she CAN'T know.

In my county, I've been seeing info about evacuations/shelters since SUNDAY.

But there is no point in having evacuated to a shelter in Pinellas - and now the storm is probably mostly passing us by here in Pinellas! Being in a shelter would have certainly increased her chance of contracting covid right now but it would have been a pointless exercise in hurricane safety! At what point do you think she SHOULD have gone to a shelter? Can you name the right time here? And do you think that tonight she should still be there instead of at home?

The right time was when a mandatory evacuation order was issued for where she lives! Duh! Or are you one of those people who think evacuation orders are for 'other' people.

And there is still a high tide coming tonight with a chance of storm surge! That's WHY certain places were ordered to evacuate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It really is true about evac - unless you are flying away - driving is kinda not that effective. You have to relo pretty far away to miss the devastation if you had to evac in the first place. I have friends down in the Keys and they don't just evac, they fly and holiday for a few days way ahead of any major storm that's tracking their way. The trick is to get out way early and far. Otherwise, you're still going to be in a mess.

This isn't true. I grew up in FL and we usually would just drive a few miles inland.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My friend, who lives in the Tampa area and are under mandatory evacuation orders:

“We aren’t evacuating this time. This storm is due to make landfall N of here. We evacuated last year when the storm was set to hit us and it ended up turning S of us.”


😳 Make it make sense!

Where is the nearest open shelter?

If it’s close to her, she’s safe enough.

I used to live in FL, and people outside of there wouldn’t understand our not moving. But, they didn’t get that people were evacuating TO us. We were safe further inland where we were.

Again, look up her nearest shelter. Those are quite safe. Also, ensure she is not staying in a trailer. A cinder block home (standard construction) is fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well we can look forward to seeing her on the news and her harrowing tale of survival and complaints about not having any water.

She has four kids, one an infant, and lives on water. It feels reckless and her excuse weak. She’s very smug about it, too.

And she’ll put first responders at risk when they have to save her. Idiots.

[Anonymous]

It isn’t this one and it might not be for decades, but someday Tampa is going to take a direct hit and a lot of people are going to die.