Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season

Gunni

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Mar 16, 2010
5,937
Beneteau 411 Oceanis Annapolis
As I sailed under sunny East Coast skies and light late summer winds this past weekend I kept a close watch on events in the Gulf and the Texas coast. After all the next one could be closer to home. This storm was predicted by the National Hurricane Center to pack a massive punch on the Texas coast as it quickly built over hot Gulf waters. And rainfall totals were predicted to be exceptionally high due to high atmospheric temps. The speed at which this Hurricane built to Cat4 was truly frightening. I found my self yelling at the screen to no one in particular - RUN! GO, GO, GO! While you couldn't predict how bad it would be for all south Texas, this was totally a storm that should have sent a knowledgeable resident looking for high ground.

I've weathered a lot of hurricanes and survival has taught me several things:
  • They give hurricanes a human name because they are just as unpredictable as any wild beast you will ever face off with. Take a look at this, the track of H. Harvey:

who can predict that? Take away; treat a hurricane like a dangerous animal, and get out of the way. Way, away. Like Dallas away.
  • Know the animal, study it. Here are the tracks of two of the worst hurricanes of the late 20th century; Hugo and Andrew. I use them as example of multiple catastrophes that unfolded over their short lives.
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Hugo punched ashore in Charleston, SC as a Cat3 and changed the geography. But the shocking damage was inland where it crushed Charlotte and brought hurricane force winds to the Blue Ridge! If you were watching local weather in Charlotte prior to impact this was disaster porn starring Charleston. If you were studying this storm and watching its NOAA metrics you would have been nailing plywood over your windows instead.

Take a look at Andrew, it smashed into the Homestead area as a Cat5 and literally leveled the landscape. Homes and people disappeared never to be seen again. Tornados mowed neat windrows of flattened bush. To people in Louisiana it was interesting TV no doubt, not understanding that they were next. As predicted Andrew had the power to survive landfall and all of south Florida, reached the Gulf and got new power from the warm waters. Next stop was just west of New Orleans where it arrived as a Cat 4 and continued the damage.
  • If you live in hurricane country it is absolutely essential that you develop the ability to use the storm intelligence you have available to you. Forget the weather girl or that goof Cantori on the weather channel. They are in the business of selling your eyeballs. You are in the business of making sure you can read the situation and get your people and your important items clear of the disaster. You should be able to find and read weather discussions from places like the National Hurricane Center, National Weather Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Bookmark them.
  • Have a ditch bag ready, have a your shelter in place plan ready and know when to swivel from one to the other. If you wait until the breathless bubblehead blonde on the Tee Vee tells you to run, you are too late. You will become a victim.
  • Don't allow yourself to be a victim. You will find yourself with diminishing options and become a drag on public safety resources. Execute your escape plan before everyone else hits the panic button. There will always be people, the young, the old, the poor and the sick that are vulnerable with few options, and don't have access to the tools you do. Leave the emergency response and SAR resources for them. You know better.
  • Living in low country is a wonderful thing, until it isn't. Everything can be gone in a day. I have since moved my home out, but I will return one day because the salt is in my blood, and I keep a boat in it to remind myself where I came from. But I will always have my plan B, that place where we go when hurricanes approach.