Sad, Mad, or Both
By Four Walls
@FourWalls (61874)
United States
September 17, 2018 9:42am CST
After a weekend of watching local coverage of Hurricane Florence (that's "local" from the TV stations in the area, not my local drama queen weatherman) I can't really determine if I'm sad, mad, or both.
SAD:
Saturday night there was a slew of tornado warnings issued. I was watching, thinking of how so many people were without electricity and may not even know that there's a tornado in the area.
Of course, that was only one of the problems. Looking at the flooding, the destruction, and hearing about the loss of life (including at least three children under 18 months of age!) is heartbreaking. Worse, this area hadn't even fully recovered from Hurricane Matthew two years ago. One of the stories showed a man sitting on his porch, watching the water rise, while the shell of the house he used to live in, destroyed by Matthew, was in the distance.
The word catastrophic doesn't even begin to describe it. I know some of those fragile coastal areas will never be the same, as well as the lives destroyed.
MAD:
Then I got to thinking, why did someone drive into flood waters and drown? Why was a one-year-old baby swept away by the raging river? That's what made me mad. This wasn't a "surprise" tornado (we've had confirmed tornadoes here where no warning, and not even a "severe thunderstorm watch" was ever issued). They'd been talking about this hurricane for TWO FREAKING WEEKS. You can go back to the day after Labor Day and find officials in North Carolina and South Carolina begging people to take the storm seriously. One went as far as to ask people who insisted on staying to write the name and phone number of next of kin on their arms with a magic marker.
The looting also infuriated me. Some people use anything as an excuse to commit a crime (yay, our team won, let's vandalize some cars! [that literally happened in Kentucky last week after the Kentucky college football team beat Florida for the first time in 39 years]). Others may have depleted their supplies. But even then, weren't people told nearly two weeks ago to "be prepared to be self-sufficient for weeks, not days"? Of course they were. I'm quoting the authorities.
JJ made a comment on his Facebook wall about the "gene pool thinning" thanks to people paying no attention to the warning. It's sad to see ol' Jean Poole on a diet and thinning down thanks to the stereotypical "here, hold my beer and watch this" southerner sure that "we need everybody to evacuate" doesn't apply to him because he's "special."
I'm not watching the coverage any longer. It made me sad. AND mad.
Insert obvious Neil Young song here:
From American Stars'n Bars (1977) ------------------------------------------------ LIKE A HURRICANE Once I thought I saw you in a crowded hazy bar, Dancing o...
9 people like this
8 responses
@marguicha (215096)
• Chile
17 Sep 18
We have many such things in my country when volcanoes get active. People don´t want to lose whatever they have and many times military and cops have to drag them away. In awful catastrophes, the only way to protect the people is by installing a marcial law to whoever is doing it. I have been told that in the Chillán earthquake here (1939) there were people cutting fingers from live people to get rings. The government had to sent the military and install a marcial law. I agree with that!
2 people like this
@FourWalls (61874)
• United States
17 Sep 18
It's sad to see that materialism overrules rational thinking. If a person's home is destroyed, they can rebuild or buy a new one. You don't get that chance with your life.
1 person likes this
@amadeo (111948)
• United States
17 Sep 18
@marguicha that is horrible there.But not surprised.
1 person likes this
@marguicha (215096)
• Chile
17 Sep 18
@FourWalls I know. Yet for many people that´s all they have and robbers go to steal as soon as they go away.
1 person likes this
@1hopefulman (45123)
• Canada
17 Sep 18
Well, nobody can say that no warnings were given!
2 people like this
@sweetashoney (3594)
• United States
17 Sep 18
You are right, everyone was warned to leave these areas. I don't blame the authorities for letting them know that there will be no help if they stay. Although my neighbor hood is less then 50 miles from the beach area, everyone stayed in our homes. If it would have stayed at a category 4 or more I for one would have left. Like you said, you can replace your things, you can't replace no ones life.
I do have to say though, no matter how prepared that people are, unexpected things can happen. This is like when the hurricane hit a couple years ago, 10 miles from me, a whole town was under water, not simply because of the hurricane. It was because the damn busted up from them, which caused flooding as close as a mile from my own house. As far a people looting, I think there should be a sever punishment for that, and the looters should have to do community services for a while helping those that have been effected by the hurricane.
1 person likes this
@sweetashoney (3594)
• United States
17 Sep 18
@FourWalls I really think that has a lot to do with it,also. That's what I told my family, just wait until the next time a hurricane comes, even more people won't want to leave because of that. You know a lot of people even now are thinking that they would have been fine at their home. I'm still like you though, no matter what, it's still better to be safe then sorry.
1 person likes this
@FourWalls (61874)
• United States
17 Sep 18
Oh, I agree that there's not always a warning. Take Charley, for instance: it was forecast to go up the western coast of Florida. Instead, it almost instantaneously intensified and turned right, into Punta Gorda. That wasn't what it was "forecast" to do. The wildfire that hit Gatlinburg a couple of years ago is another example: nobody expected a sudden shift in the winds and hurricane force winds that picked up a relatively small fire and sent it raging into Gatlinburg.
Dams break (Johnstown floods in 1889 and 1977, St. Francis Dam, etc.) without warning. I'd even go so far as to say you can have a "freak snow storm" (all those people who got stranded on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago a couple of years ago by lake-effect snow, and Kentucky [the entire state, mind you] was shut down for a WEEK after a 16-inch snowfall that was "supposed to be" just a couple of inches). But this time there was ample warning. I think it's probably the "boy who cried wolf" syndrome: they issue these warnings so many times and some people barely get a puddle in their back yard so they say, "Ah, that was nothing," and don't listen the next time.
@DWDavis (25812)
• Pikeville, North Carolina
17 Sep 18
It is sad to see the destruction and loss of life.
If I had my way, looters would be shot on sight. If there were a dozen looters, I say shoot them all. They have no excuse for what they are doing other than pure unadulterated greed.
As for the idiots, an incident happened at the creek near my house today where a woman was letting her two small boys play in the water rushing over the road and down the ditch while she stood in the water holding on to a stroller. My wife tried to explain to her that the water was not clean as it had drained over who knew how many yards with over stressed septic systems, not to mention the other oils and chemicals from fertilizers and the road, plus all the animal waste. That doesn't even begin to include the danger of one of them slipping into the fast moving creek and getting carried away. The woman shrugged off my wife's warning and let the kids keep playing. It just goes to show, as my wife said, you can't fix stupid.
1 person likes this
@FourWalls (61874)
• United States
17 Sep 18
The magic word would probably be “snakes.” They’re another hazard of floods.
1 person likes this
@DWDavis (25812)
• Pikeville, North Carolina
18 Sep 18
@FourWalls I should have thought of that. I'm sure knowing there might be snakes would have convinced her to leave.
1 person likes this
@Hannihar (129345)
• Israel
23 Sep 18
@FourWalls
Hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes,, typhoons, are horrible and cause so much trouble to human beings. I am sorry for all of you that are in the way of Hurricane Florence and all the mess it has caused you.
1 person likes this
@BabeSays (8576)
• Mauritius
18 Sep 18
I get sad and mad at the same time...a mixture of emotions. I hate it.