This seems like a good time to recommend Amanda Ripley’s excellent book The Unthinkable, which examines why (and how) some people survive catastrophes and others don’t. She examines 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, a hotel fire, a stampede at Mecca, and the Virginia Tech mass shooting, among other incidents. It’s a fascinating book, and also hugely practical.
Katrina seems most relevant now, with Hurricane Matthew bearing down on us. Ripley reports that, although a lot of the press coverage of the victims focused on poverty: “The victims of Katrina were not disproportionately poor; they were disproportionately old. Three-quarters of the dead were over sixty, according to the Knight Ridder analysis. Half were over seventy-five.”
She then launches into a discussion of how bad most of us are at risk assessment. You know: how we dread sharks and terrorist attacks when we really should be dreading car crashes and household accidents. She also talks about the perils of arrogance (“about 90 percent of drivers think they are safer than the average driver”) and overconfidence:
When it comes to old-fashioned risks like weather, we often overestimate ourselves. Of the fifty-two people who died during Hurricane Floyd in 1999, for example, 70 percent drowned. And most of them drowned in their cars, which had become trapped in floodwaters. This is a recurring problems in hurricanes. People are overconfident about driving through water, even though they are bombarded with official warnings not to. (This tendency varies, of course, depending on the individual. One study out of the University of Pittsburgh showed that men are much more likely to try to drive through high water than women—and thus more likely to die in the process.)”
Also:
Hurricanes are especially tricky because we have to respond to them before things get ugly. We have to evacuate when the skis are clear and blue….It’s hard to image the violence to come. Without any tangible cues, denial comes easily.
In general, she reports, elderly people don’t like to evacuate: “In 1989 1979, after the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania, retirees and people over age seventy were least likely to evacuate—regardless of how close they were to the reactor.”
Also, elderly people are at particularly risk for over-valuing past experiences (relative to current conditions) in their decision-making. This appears to be a particular trap in highly complex and variable events like hurricanes. Ripley reports on an elderly Katrina victim who, when his kids urged him to evacuate, quite reasonably pointed out that his house had survived thirty years of hurricanes and so should also survive Katrina. But what he—and pretty much everyone else—hadn’t counted on was that decades of technohubris-fueled, under-regulated development and “starve-the-government” GOP policies had decimated the wetlands and levees that had previously protected the city from big hurricanes. And so, like so many others, he drowned.
Best to all Juicers who are in Matthew’s path. Please evacuate EARLY and check in as best you can throughout the weekend. And here’s a thread for sharing everyone’s hurricane-related experiences and suggestions and good wishes. (After Matthew has piddled out, I’ll post another thread with some of Ripley’s more general survival tips – plus my own experience with an earthquake in Japan.)
gratuitous
For those of you in the path, when you want to let your loved ones know that you’re okay, please TEXT DON’T CALL them. Texting takes up a miniscule portion of bandwidth. Yes, it’s nice to hear your voice, but the text will suffice until the crisis has passed.
Hillary Rettig
@gratuitous: fantastic advice
SP
The forecast looks like it will swing around and maybe strike again 5-7 days later? Has that ever happened before?
Amir Khalid
With regard to the Haj stampedes that kill hundreds (or at their worst, thousands) of pilgrims, It seems to me that the Saudi government has hit the limit of what safety-oriented infrastructure (which it spends billions on) can do. It needs to reduce the numbers of Haj pilgrims. But this would lengthen the waiting lists for Haj visas — already years long in some countries — at great political cost to the House of Saud.
Incidentally, many on those waiting lists are elderly people who have saved up all their lives for the Haj — and would consider it auspicious to die in the Holy Land while performing it. i suspect something vaguely similar may be at the back of the minds of the old people reluctant to evacuate approaching calamity in America.
Cermet
But I have swum in the ocean so sharks are a far greater risk than sitting out a Cat IV/III hurricane, don’t you know? One poster here, down thread, has already said sitting it out is safe because evacuation is soooo dangerous … .
Mnemosyne
The Orlando offices of the Giant Evil Corporation will be closing down tomorrow. Not sure of what the other prep will be, but they’re usually on the ball with hotels and such.
Regarding people and risk factors, one of the things that helped me decide to buy a Subaru was their “They Lived” ad campaign. That’s a pretty powerful argument for why you should buy a car with all of the safety bells and whistles.
grumpy realist
@SP: There was another hurricane some time back which hit Florida on one side, then did a loop around the Gulf and came back and hit the other side. (Luckily, by the time Round II came around, it had actually dwindled from a hurricane down to a tropical storm, which helped cushion the effects.)
So yeah, hurricanes can do that.
(My main experience of earthquakes in Tokyo and elsewhere in Japan is getting used to them to the point of sleeping through them.)
Starfish
@gratuitous: …if the power or cellphone towers are not knocked down (which they might be.) It was easiest to get through to people with satellite phones.
I started a map of Juicers in the area to be affected by Matthew so we can check with them after the storm. So far, there are a few people in South Florida. My in-laws in coastal Georgia are evacuating.
Wapiti
Nice book recommendation – I’ll check it out. The Seattle library has a cool system where we can put a hold on a book at any branch, and they ship books around to the users’ home branch. So I was able to find and order the book and they’ll let me know when it is at my branch.
Hillary Rettig
@SP: never heard of such a thing /ianam
Starfish
@Cermet: Evacuation can be dangerous if you start late. Many hotels along your evacuation route may be sold out. Roads may be flooded or moved by flood waters.
raven
Yea, over sixty is really fuckin old.
Hillary Rettig
@Amir Khalid: do you mean the old people think going out as the result of a hurricane is somehow honorable? I’m not sure I buy that. otoh, I could see an old person not moving from the Three Mile Island vicinity because she figures that most of her risk is long-term and therefore not a real concern.
Mel
Hillary, this is such an important and timely topic, esp. as we see more intense and/or unexpected and sudden weather issues due to climate change. Thank you for the reminder.
Here in my midwestern city in the square states, we just had two large urban neighborhoods (both on high ground; neither with any recent history of major flood issues) experience some devastating damage during what was, elsewhere in the city, just a very hard rain. An isolated, unusual pocket of the storm dumped multiple inches of water on these neighborhoods in an extremely short period of time. That plus 100 year old city sewers caused intense flash flooding, home damage, vehicle damage, and the need (unanticipated because this was supposed to be just another heavy Midwestern summer thunderstorm) for emergency food, shelter, supplies, and funds for numerous families.
Just a thought: pet preparedness is vital, too. It helps to have a kitty carrier in an easily accessible spot, and to have supplies in your emergency kit for your furry family members, as well. Single use cans of a favorite, familiar pet food (easy to carry /keep safe and fresh in case of evac), a week’s worth of any pet maintenance medicines packed in the kit, and extra bottled water with a lightweight, unbreakable, easy to pack and carry dish are essential.
Hillary Rettig
@Mnemosyne: Holy shit, that’s an effective ad. Will send it to my sis who works in advertising, although I’m pretty sure she’s seen it. (And she drives a Subaru btw.)
Years ago I had in my class a woman whose job it was to send all the car-death statistics from MA to the federal government each year. Her biggest piece of advice: never ride in a car w/out airbags.
Mustang Bobby
They are not telling us to evacuate in Miami-Dade County since we are under a tropical storm warning. I am half-way between downtown Miami and Homestead. Right now the skies are overcast and we’ve had some rain bands pass by, but so far no wind. If it comes, it will come later tonight. The good news is that the eye of the hurricane has passed the latitude that Miami lies on so the storm will not come over us. The bad news is that we are now on the “dirty” side of the storm; the winds and rain will be stronger on the west side of the storm. That should hit later today over overnight. We are in range for “possible” power outages.
I made it through both Katrina and Wilma in 2005 when they were direct hits. We had voluntary evacuation but I stayed put along with most of my friends and neighbors. I lost a tree to Katrina but no damage to the house except for a couple of roof tiles. Since then I moved to a house that survived Andrew in 1992.
Ruviana
@Cermet: This reminded me of my aunt who didn’t like wearing car seatbelts since they impeded her plan to “jump free” if there was a car accident.
Jonny Scrum-half
@Cermet: But if I’m more likely to die in a car accident than a hurricane, why would I evacuate my home by driving a car to avoid a hurricane?
Hillary Rettig
@Starfish: not to mention the roads will all likely be clogged with other evacuees.
Starfish
@Hillary Rettig: I think he is being Haj specific. If it is a once-in-a-lifetime religious trip, couldn’t it be honorable to go out like that?
My mom lives in an area that was somewhat affected by Katrina. Many folks in her area said that they were going to be too old to rebuild if this happened again in their life time. One of them is a nurse whose husband, a large difficult to move man, is wheelchair bound, at too high of a risk to have heart surgery for various narrowing or blocked arteries, and in need of constant care involving a colostomy and other issues that I do not know about. How would they evacuate if they needed to? How would they get clean medical supplies if they could not evacuate?
Thoroughly Pizzled
I read that book a while ago; it was excellent! But I don’t remember much about it other than the terrifying disasters themselves. Might be worth revisiting.
Hillary Rettig
@Mel: Hi Mel, great points and I will try to highlight your advice re pet preparedness in the followup post.
Hillary Rettig
@Mustang Bobby: glad you’re not right in the path, but please be careful. if the situation changes, I hope you and your neighbors will all evacuate sooner rather than later.
Gin & Tonic
@Jonny Scrum-half: You are still less likely to die driving. In the last decade, the death rate in the US is steady at about 1 per 100 million vehicle-miles. If 2 million people are forced to evacuate and they all drive 100 miles, two people will die in vehicle accidents. 65 people died during Hurricane Andrew. Over 1,800 died during Katrina. 50 died during Hurricane Hugo.
Mustang Bobby
@Hillary Rettig: Thanks, I’m watching very closely and I have a place to go. The latest forecast shows that we could get some high winds within the next hour and through the afternoon and evening, but they are for the northern part of the county. Still, I’m ready to go if necessary.
Mnemosyne
@Hillary Rettig:
They also had a really funny one running at the same time where a wife buys an easel and paint for her husband and they go on all kinds of amazing road trips in their Subaru so he can paint the scenery. They get home, and the big reveal is that he’s a terrible painter. Worse than a first-grader.
Hillary Rettig
@Starfish: Ah, I guess I misread.
I’m guessing there are protocols for how to handle the very seriously ill like the man you described – and so the thing to do is follow them. However, Ripley notes that the coworkers of one large, wheelchair-bound man were actually able to carry him down all the flights of stairs during the 9/11 evac. So I would not make the mistake (and I’m not saying you’re making it, btw) of assuming someone is “unsave-able.”
Starfish
@Gin & Tonic: Part of Katrina was a politically-created tragedy. The federal government and local government were playing political football and not working together to solve the problem in Louisiana, and it was horrific. Notice how the people in nearby Mississippi got some of the help they needed while the ones in Louisiana, facing bigger risks and more damage, did not.
RSA
@Ruviana:
Yeah, that’s my plan if I’m ever in a free-falling elevator. I think I saw it on a cartoon once.
Hillary Rettig
@Starfish: as per the couple of links I posted in the OP. The In These Times article points to the Bush admin’s extreme culpability.
Punchy
“Reagan wasn’t that bad….how much worse could Trump be? I’M VOTING TRUMP!”
Elmo
@Mnemosyne: That ad was AMAZEBALLS. Literally made me catch my breath.
BruceFromOhio
Thanks for sharing this, very timely.
Three Mile Island accident occurred in 1979, not 1989.
Gonzo
My dad and stepmom live along the I-4 corridor between Orlando and Daytona…and they’re not evacuating.
They’re about 20-30 mins from the coast and I’m freaking the fuck out.
Face
Matthew is Katrina’s Obama, soon sayith Christie, who’s Trump’s Guliani and soon Prisoner 169’s bitch.
Cacti
Fix’t.
Hillary Rettig
@Jonny Scrum-half:
1) seems like your odds of dying from a hurricane are pretty high, esp. if elderly, unhealthy, in a low-lying area, etc. plus, your death would be entirely preventable by evacuation. (better safe than sorry?)
2) because your odds of dying while driving can be mitigated by doing smart things like not drinking/using, not texting, and not driving recklessly.
Hillary Rettig
@BruceFromOhio: thanks for correction!
Shell
Notice now that a lot of government officials will stress that there are ‘pet-friendly’ shelters available. In the past a lot of people refused to evacuate cause they didn’t want to leave their pets behind.
Amir Khalid
@Hillary Rettig:
No, I’m not referring to Grandma volunteering to go out on the ice floe.It’s just that elderly people are sometimes, um, fatalistic about such things, and have a sense — rightly or not — that their time is coming. I would argue with any elderly person who wanted to resign themselves to fate in this fashion, of course, but I’m well aware of such sentiments.
Hillary Rettig
@Punchy: Could be!
randy khan
The research on risk assessment and natural disasters is stunning. I looked into some of it in college, and it’s filled with people saying things like “we had a one hundred year flood last year, so we won’t get one for another 99 years” or, conversely, things like “it floods every year just like this” right after a hundred year flood. We just can’t comprehend the risks of such events.
catclub
Survivorship bias is maximized in those who lived through all of their previous mistakes.
Hillary Rettig
@Shell: and I would have been one of them. Wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I had left a loved one behind. Your comment now makes me think I need to do a second update on this piece on pet evacuation. Thanks!
Mnemosyne
@Elmo:
It got me to buy a $20K car from them, so it was obviously effective.
My brother who lives in IL leases a Honda Civic, and after he got t-boned by an SUV, he went right back out and got another one, because all of the safety features meant that he walked away with a few bruises from the airbags.
Hillary Rettig
@randy khan: many of those attitudes may have made more sense when the average lifespan was much shorter. also, as Ripley documents, technology tends to make us complacent / arrogant. adds to the “it can’t happen to me” denial.
Hillary Rettig
hey everyone – have to check out now (dog is giving me the hairy eyeball about his afternoon snack and walk) but will check in later.
Mel
@Hillary Rettig:
Hi, Hillary!
I just checked to see if any of the major rescue organizations have detailed info up. They do!
The American Humane Society (humane society.org) has a disaster preparedness section that includes resources for finding pet-friendly lodgings during an emergency.
They also provide some links to disaster preparedness info for people, some of which are extremely helpful and even provide checklists of important emergency supplies.
The ASPCA site has some excellent info about steps to take in advance (microchipping since collars or tags can easily get lost during an emergency or evac), assembling supplies, medicines and other essentials for pets.
catclub
@Starfish:
Governor of Mississippi was Republican Haley Barbour. Governor of Louisiana was Democrat Kathleen Blanco. Bush admin sabotaged her.
I cannot imagine Obama sabotaging Chris Christie, even if I want him to.
Matt McIrvin
@Amir Khalid: Reminds me of Harry R. Truman, the old guy who refused to evacuate his home on Mount St. Helens. His statements were a strange mix of denial and “if the mountain goes, I’m going with it.” And people loved him for it. He was probably obliterated in a pyroclastic flow.
Jonny Scrum-half
@Gin & Tonic: I know it’s a serious subject, but I wasn’t being serious.
Jonny Scrum-half
@Hillary Rettig: Thanks, Ms. Rettig. I know that this is a serious matter, but I was just using 2 of the examples in your post in a poor attempt to be mildly un-serious.
Brachiator
@Amir Khalid:
No. Don’t think so. The Haj is a religious ritual. A hurricane or other disaster is a random event.
Also, with the elderly, some problems are simply related to illness, mobility problems, other practical issues. An 85 year old cannot simply jump up and run or drive away from a disaster.
The overvaluing past experiences thing sounds like a bunch of malarky.
In California, the people who tend to ignore evacuation orders when there are wild fires are average age and middle aged adults, not particularly elderly individuals.
Amir Khalid
@Matt McIrvin:
That’s exactly what I mean.
Older
@Ruviana: Horribly,my step-dad was in an accident in which all of the belted-in passengers were killed and only he, the one without a seat belt, survived. The little piece that makes it all clear is that they were all stinko drunk, so after the car stopped rolling the other passengers and the driver, who had presumably passed out, just sat in their seats while it burned. My dad was thrown free. We never heard the end of it.
Lee
I actually read that book, I’m pretty sure on your recommendation.
Great read, quick read.
Highly recommended it
Matt McIrvin
@Brachiator: I was just reading some reports from elderly people in Florida who said they couldn’t afford to evacuate.
Mike in dc
My dad lives in Melbourne. He hasn’t evacuated. My stress level is elevated today.
Betty Cracker
Definitely gonna read that book. Thanks!
MomSense
@Mnemosyne:
I lived that ad. All the first responders told me that the car saved us. Replaced the totaled Subaru with another.
Gemina13
A friend in Hilton Head, SC, decided not to evacuate due to the traffic jams. This morning she was leaning towards leaving.
I’m scared to death, but it’s impossible to make someone go when they think they don’t have to. Still . . . see the first part of this sentence.
redshirt
What’s in your bug out bag? How many weeks of food do you have prepared? What will you do when the Zombies rise?
Brachiator
@Matt McIrvin:
Another practical problem.
catclub
@MomSense:
Other people might take the lesson as: “Don’t be in a Subaru, the other drivers are aiming at them.”
I hate the fact that people get giant SUV’s because: “If I am in an accident it will protect me, but of course kill whoever I collide with.”
Aleta
@Mnemosyne: I got out of my subaru (forester) unhurt, by myself, after it spun 180 and rolled twice (a tire blow out on a curve). (Front end and windshield extremely smashed up, but I could get out easily by myself.) The braking system has saved me a few times too. And its handling in a true blizzard was so good it was actually enjoyable, usually not the case on bad roads. These things were 10 and 13 years ago, so I can’t say about present makes. But I still drive one for safety, for reasons as you said. (It’s possible my tire pressure was not in the right range on one tire when I crashed, and I later learned that the tire pressure mattered more than I knew, for stability. It was a year 2000 model.)
catclub
@Brachiator: A large fraction of The people who did not evacuate for Katrina had no vehicles, and the city and state were ill-prepared for that fact.
Dork
@Matt McIrvin: Truman was killed in the Mt. St. Helens eruption?
eclare
I’ll definitely check that book out! Thanks!
Brachiator
Hope everyone in the bad weather areas take care. Watch out for friends and family.
Jamey
Fucking Vanilla Ice.
Schlemazel
@SP:
Yes, at least one time I know of but it was long ago (I read about it, it was not within my lifetime) The hurricane hit the coast of Georgia then looped back & smacked into Central Florida. As I recall the place was not heavily populated at the time but there was a tremendous amount of destruction (a 20′ surge)
Jamey
Fucking Vanilla Ice
Jeffro
Speaking of unthinkable: Ryan & Co are ready to repeal Obamacare, pass massive tax cuts, and more, without a single Dem vote.
It only happens if we let it happen – G.O.T.V.
randy khan
@Hillary Rettig:
Yeah, that makes sense.
Aleta
Also speaking of previously supposed unthinkables, this is a mournful picture of Ted Cruz making phone calls for Trump.
gvg
@Dork:
not the President, some other guy with that name.
redshirt
I sat through the remnants of a hurricane in a shack on stilts in the middle of the woods and it was terrifying. The power went out at sunset, so it was candles and darkness the rest of the night as the entire place shook and vibrated – things were moving inside from the vibrations. And outside was the relentless sound of branches and trees crashing down – any one of which might crash through the roof.
I just sat in a chair in the middle of the house for the entirety of it, not thinking of anything better to do. In retrospect I should have left, but by the time the worst of it started, the dog was under the bed and would not come out and I couldn’t have left her.
Ruviana
@Older: I think it was stories like this that my aunt had heard that made her resist the seatbelts. We’d basically tell her we weren’t starting the car until she was buckled in.
Poopyman
@gvg: Harry Randall Truman
Matt McIrvin
@Ruviana: I remember people being insulted if you wore a seat belt when they were driving. “What, you think I’m a bad driver?”
Ruviana
@Matt McIrvin: Yeah, I’m old enough to remember that. Also when seatbelts were an “option” you had to order special–fancy!
Poopyman
@Poopyman: A touching postscript:
Brachiator
@catclub:
I remember the problems and the failures. There were a couple of local radio talk show hosts, sitting safely in their studios, and not even bothering to check accurate news reports, looking for all kinds of reasons to blame the people of Louisiana for there own problems. It was infuriating.
There were also idiots asking, “well, why do people live in a place they know will flood?”
Doug R
@Matt McIrvin: I remember old Harry Truman. I heard St Helens blow, it took the sound about 20 minutes to reach us, seeing as it was a couple of Hundred miles away. We also get a Massive subduction earthquake in the Pacific northwest every 300 to 700 years. The last one was about a 9.0 316 years ago, pinned down by Japanese records of a rogue tsunami.
We are so totally unprepared for a 9.0
eclare
@Brachiator: Why don’t these people just buy some bottled water, throw it in their Range Rover, and go?
Doug R
@Older: We have a sharp folding knife on a cord attached to the handbrake for just that unlikely scenario.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Jonny Scrum-half:
I got it. But you should have used your Steven Wright voice.
Jeffro
@Aleta: Owen Ellickson is just knocking Craven Cruz dead on Twitter…@onlxn is his handle there…hysterical!
Schlemazel
@Mike in dc:
Regular readers may be sick of my saying it (this is like the fourth time today) but here it is anyway. When we lived North of Melbourne many people claimed Brevard County was magically protected from hurricanes by the Gulf currents. That always scared me. I have been unable to contact a couple friends in the area and am hoping that means they got the hell out. They were not believers in magic so I assume the boogied.
Schlemazel
@Dork:
Not the former POTUS, but an 80 year old guy of the same name.
Hillary Rettig
@Mnemosyne: from a purely advertising perspective it does a great job of making the benefit “tangible”
Brachiator
@Ruviana:
I know that in the past libertarians (and other conservatives) have opposed seat belts and air bags. Have they also opposed improvements to braking systems and other life-saving enhancements?
I remember one libertarian nut job insisting that wearing a motorcycle helmet impeded his ability to ride his vehicle safely. He said that being able to see and hear road conditions without being hindered by headgear was dangerous. I asked him why it was that professional cyclists, riding much faster over deliberately hazardous courses, could do so efficiently while wearing helmet and protective gear. Never got a rational answer.
Then it got down to his right to take risks. I said, fine, as long as he would carry a card that says that if he had an accident on a public road, then no public money should be spent collecting his body, transporting him to a hospital or taking care of him.
Hillary Rettig
@Matt McIrvin: I always felt sorry for the grad student who got killed, but who reported on the event until the last moment.
Corner Stone
@Doug R:
That’s..uh…special.
MomSense
@catclub:
SUVs and trucks are a problem because the heaviest part of the vehicles hits you at your windshield in a regular car.
I don’t do a lot of driving but I do have to drive in all kinds of bad weather and the All Wheel Drive is really nice. My pet peeve about drivers is when they think their AWD means they can drive really fast in snow and icy conditions.
Anoniminous
@randy khan:
People don’t understand Probability. Which I find weird since, at bottom, it’s really easy to grasp.
Davebo
@Cermet: Passive agressive becomes you Cermet.
How many hurricanes have you been through?
Corner Stone
A good friend of mine in Austin owned a Subaru WRX he had chipped and modded out. That MF had more faith in that car’s ability to respond to conditions and directions than I did the sun would rise in the East the next morning.
Needless to say, I rode in it with him once. Once.
Davebo
@Starfish: During Rita I checked, the closest hotel with 3 rooms available for my extended family was in Oklahoma City. It’s not that I didn’t consider evacuation. It’s just that all things considered it was idiotic.
Corner Stone
@Davebo: Cermet probably is not aware of the 14 to 22 hour traffic jams for people trying to evacuate H Rita.
In a metro area of nearly 6M people, when some decide to leave in a similar timeframe, shit happens.
Davebo
@Ruviana: When GM introduced seat belts as an option the biggest complaint was that they were uncomfortable to sit on.
Hillary Rettig
@Jonny Scrum-half: no problem but remember: the /s tag is always your friend! (And call me Hillary)
Davebo
@Corner Stone: A metro area 50 miles from the coast.
I did end up taking the family to Dallas and we got there in just 8 hours thanks to leaving at 3:00AM and taking back roads.
I know people who spent 8 hours on the road and never got outside beltway 8.
I’ll never evacuate again for a storm but it was just after Katrina and my wife was freaking out a bit.
Matt McIrvin
@Anoniminous: The math of basic probability theory is not hard, but human intuition is wired to disbelieve in the results.
Hillary Rettig
@Matt McIrvin: she doesn’t say that that’s the only reason elderly people don’t evacuate; only one reason
WereBear
When I lived on Long Island, I had a number of carriers and a big dog crate for all the cats who got along. Dogs on leash. The rabbit would have gone in with the cats.
Fish, now; they would have to hang in there.
Matt McIrvin
@Davebo: I was that asshole nerd who always insisted on wearing seat belts in other people’s cars. Sometimes it would be nearly impossible to dig them out of the crack in the rear bench seats where they’d been stuffed to get them out of the way.
Dork
I’ve always thought that a lot of the probs associated with getting people to act smart in a storm is that The Weather Channel inevitably and routinely broadcasts some dumbass like Cantore standing out there in 140mph winds as if it’s a game to stay on 2 feet and beat the sideways rain. In other words, they’ve tornado-chased the concept of riding out a ‘cane just to get the shit on video, danger be dammed. Now you have amateur ‘caners (just like amateur twister chasers) who dont know shit trying to survive 100+ winds, forgetting about storm surge.
Basically, a hurricane has become reality TV, and everyone wants their 15 mins of fame via a viral video.
ETA: get off my lawn, and where’s my effin’ Geritol?
Mike J
@redshirt:
Interesting you should ask. Renton Emergency services are having a class on surviving a zombie apocalypse, as is REI.
Apparently, it’s a matter of some concern in the Pacific NW. My personal plan involves fortifying the dam at Snoqualmie falls so we have electricity.
Lee
@Davebo:
If I remember correctly, evacuation was hindered because Gov. Goodhair didn’t authorize I45 to evacuation mode (both sides going out) until it was too late and a complete standstill.
Anoniminous
@Matt McIrvin:
I know. The best example is:
1. tell people the odds are 50/50 which side of a coin will land face-up
2. tell them a coin has been flipped 100 times and came-up heads every time
3. ask them the odds the coin will come-up heads on the 101 flip
Less than 10% of respondents will give the correct answer, most will give lower odds than 50%, sometime quite substantially lower odds.
Edited for “Engrish? How doez she wrk?”
Corner Stone
@Davebo: I evacced for Rita but did not for Ike. Went to Sealy late at night and took all back roads, went under I-10 and on a deep dive through the hinterlands. Took about 45 minutes longer than it normally would have. In-Laws spent over 14 hours trying to get to Marble Falls, normally a 3 or so hour trip.
Rita was a bad lesson, both after Katrina and then as a prelude for Ike.
After the absolute hell on earth Ike was for 14 hours, my son and I went to Austin and then San Marcos the next morning. It looked like post-nuclear or zombie apocalypse. Cars on the side of the road, debris everywhere. Ike was literally driving me insane because the howling and relentless battering did not stop.
Mike J
@Anoniminous: If a coin has come up heads 100 times in a row, chances are it’s rigged. I’d guess a 99%+ chance of heads on the next flip.
Corner Stone
@Mike J: Vegas has a reservation for you, anytime.
Mike J
@Corner Stone: the odds of an honest coin coming up heads 100 times in a row is
1 in 1,267,650,600,228,229,401,496,703,205,376
What are the odds that the person with the coin is dishonest? I’d guess significantly less.
randy khan
@Ruviana:
Having had my life and my wife’s saved once by seatbelts, airbags and unibody construction and having avoided meaningful injury one other time because of seatbelts, in both cases in accidents caused by the other driver, I also have the “the car doesn’t move until everyone is belted in” rule. Pretty much everyone takes it in good humor, but I don’t care whether or not they do.
Matt McIrvin
@Mike J: Yeah, with that scenario I’d say the chances of 100 heads in a row with a fair coin are far smaller than the probability that I was being lied to in step 1.
Corner Stone
@Mike J: I agree it seems hinky. But as they say, “The coin has no memory.”
I once watched a rooo letty ball land black 14 times in a row. I bet red, 15, 16, 17 and then stopped. It went on to land black 22 times in a row for the time I was watching. On spin 23? It landed green.
ETA, the argument that one should have bet black after 14 each time is the other side of the same..ahem…coin.
p.a.
How will Nosferatu and Florida Repubs use this to fuck with registered voter rolls or voting sites?
Corner Stone
@p.a.:
Don’t know about the voting, but how will they use this to get some of them ultrasounds up in the unmonitored uterati?
That is what I am really concerned about. The ladies parts that we just don’t know about yet, without the extreme vetting.
Davebo
@Corner Stone: Going to Sealy for Rita was literally driving into the storm!
At least there were plenty of Igloo ice chests!
I left Dallas before the storm hit when it was clear it was heading west of Houston. Good think as the return exodus was almost as bad as the evacuation.
Corner Stone
“Smokey just gave me a bearhug.”
I am loving these new Chris Tucker commercials about preventing forest fires.
Ruviana
@Davebo: LOL!
Gemina13
@Mnemosyne:
The SO and I both drive Civics. They rarely need much repair work, and we have an excellent chance of surviving wrecks. But if my purple DX ever dies, I will give serious consideration to a Subaru.
Corner Stone
@Davebo: Ah, my dad lived there at the time, in a great spot with 11 acres and built in generator, well water, etc. It really only moaned it’s way through for a night and didn’t even damage any trees on his property.
ETA, groan, just caught the Igloo part. Well done, well done.
ETAA, and even though it moved west of H-Town, Rita still blew out windows in a number of high rise bldgs in downtown Houston. So not a complete miss.
eclare
@randy khan: I do too. Drives me nuts that within about 1/4 mile or so of her house my mother unfastens the seat belt to “get the keys and get ready to get out”. It’s easier to do that in a moving car than in a car parked in your driveway? Besides, it’s not like I drive by the house and insist she do a tuck and roll to get out.
Ruviana
@eclare: I think my aunt would’ve liked to do that!
Cermet
@Davebo: Not that it matters but I evacuated for one that really hit the west coast of Florida; as for passive aggressive, that coming from you is funny. Since facts bear out all I have said, that leaves that you are someone who does’t believe in such things; which leaves the obvious issue of your state ofmind or lack there of.
Davebo
@Cermet:
Drinking before 5:00PM is frowned on. But hey, you’re entitled to your own facts because we live in the Trump age after all!
Get back with me when the west coast of Florida gets more hurricane/tropical storm outbreaks than crystal meth overdoses!
Gemina13
@Mike J:
Definitely look into the shipyards. Or a Costco. You can barricade the doors and outlast the zombies with food and ammo to spare.
Corner Stone
@Mike J:
What good will electricity be in that scenario? How long do you think a small group of dedicated people could keep the internals going, and why?
Just asking in general, really, because all the brushes I have had with “preppers” always fascinate me at their mindset.
Origuy
@Hillary Rettig: He wasn’t a grad student. David Johnston, Ph.D., was a volcanologist with the USGS.
Personal hero of mine.
Davebo
@Corner Stone: It wasn’t till afterwards but I lived in the Four Seasons downtown for a year or so. The stories of them riding out Rita with generators and an open bar were classic.
Almost no guests so the residents had a fine time.
schrodinger's cat
@Corner Stone: They seem mentally ill to me. Did you read the Washpost piece about Redoubt that appeared a couple of weeks ago?
Corner Stone
No, if I caught it at the time I have forgotten about it. IMO, preppers are all largely racists, many with a high degree of evangelical bent. They all fantasize about killing people to survive, because their way is the true way. Invariably, the people that must needs be killed are black or brown.
They will survive the coming collapse, kill off those unable to care for themselves and remake our nation into a great fortress that will fend off the multicultural oppressive government of the UN! Because as we know, the UN is waiting patiently to take over our government and enslave our sov cits in service of something something in Geneva? Or Lux? I don’t know, somewhere over there.
Davebo
Update from Weather Underground.
Matthew looks to slash the east coast from Miami to the Carolinas. This one looks scary.
Corner Stone
@Davebo: EVACUATE! Or don’t. See if I care, you big lug.
Starfish
@Davebo: I totally understand. I have a friend who was in New Orleans during Katrina, and he had driven to somewhere in Northern Arkansas before he found a hotel. It was crazy.
Wayne
Looks like Juicers Mustang Bobby, Emma and myself, all located in South Miami-Dade county, are beneficiaries of a nice jog to the right by hurricane Matthew. The loser is Freeport, Bahamas which now looks like it will take a direct hit. This also benefits Ft. Lauderdale and Palm Beach although they will still get some stout weather.
Mike J
@Corner Stone: Electricity will keep refrigerators and freezers running. Also used for cooking and heat, so less of your time is used gathering firewood. At night you’ll have lights to read books and learn survival skills. Grab a radio transmitter and you can power it to help attract survivors.
Hydroelectric is designed to work with minimal human input. Electricity will provide you with many things that would normally take a lot of time. You can then spend more time on clearing out nearby zombies, extending cleared areas for fields/livestock, going on raids to Costco, etc. There will be plenty of gasoline in abandoned cars, but that’s a finite resource. Nobody is going to be pumping and refining crude for a long time. Generators would only be a stopgap until you could get sustainable energy up.
Snoqualmie also has a RR track running through the middle of town. You could follow the tracks to Joint Base Lewis/McChord if you needed more weapons, assuming highways will be close to impassable. It’s a small town, so there are potentially fewer turned locals to worry about than on Queen Anne or First hill.
workworkwork
@Aleta: If Paul Ryan wants to kill me, he’ll have to look me straight in the eye and shove the blade in personally.
“The cheaper the hood, the gaudier the patter.”
I’ll tell that to anyone who yaps about “Obamacare” unless they’re talking about expanding it.
(Can you tell that I met with the hospital billing person and she explained my total capped out-of-pocket expenses thanks to the ACA? At least now I feel like I can focus on getting better and not worry about my wife and I going homeless.)
Gemina13
@Corner Stone:
I’ve found there’s a difference between “preppers” and zombie enthusiasts. Most “preppers” are religious zealots (and often white supremacists as well) who want badly to tell the rest of us, “See?! We were right when we told you that your evil, sinning ways would bring the end of the world!” And then they’ll get to kill a bunch of people and blow shit up because, after all, it’s every good Christianist for himself.
Many zombie enthusiasts also want to kill things and blow shit up, but many look to the work of building and saving communities after a zombie outbreak. Yes, you have to figure out how to fight off the zombies, but once that’s done, how do you live after? How do you nurture the survivors and rebuild society? That’s what’s important.
workworkwork
@Mike J: Clearly you’ve thought this through.
Can we bunk with you? I can cook and clean and my wife is a sparkling conversationalist.
Ceci n'est pas mon nym
Well, speaking of men being stupider than women about weather danger, sis informs us that my brother-in-law is now officially isolated. The causeway to the mainland is closed and she expects to lose comms with him once the storm starts. (She evacuated with pets and family; for reasons nobody understands, he refused to)
Mike J
@workworkwork: Of course. The more people in the survivors colony, the easier things will be. People can specialize (hunters can do the hunting, fisherfolk can do the fishing, etc.) And of course the more survivors, the better your odds if there is a zombie attack.
Corner Stone
@Gemina13:
There isn’t any “after”. That’s the whole thing about the zombie apocalypse. It can’t be stopped. It can’t be beaten. No one will get out alive.
By definition, at least according to the genre, it’s like 98% zombies to living people. They don’t need anything. Not food, water, electricity, warm showers, Snickers, nothing.
Any “society” that is recreated will always be back under assault. Water, food, ammo, sanity – it doesn’t matter. None of it can be harvested, renewed or created in enough volumes to maintain the live peoples in those shelters. They will be relentlessly under assault. Zombies don’t sleep or get cramps from running.
ETA, I find the “28 Days” genre of zombie to be crap. They are dead but need nutrition to keep chasing living things? What?
redshirt
@Corner Stone: Zombies don’t live forever silly! They’re not vampires.
Corner Stone
@Mike J: The more noise, light, attention your community gives off the more under threat it will be. Either from attracting Z’s or marauders who want what you have.
The small time society you try to protect will be constantly under watch and under threat. Making it more “modern” in its working aspects only calls for it to fail sooner rather than later.
workworkwork
@Mike J: I can fish! And, if necessary, serve as a decoy for the attacking hordes if necessary so we can launch our withering counter-attack.
A zombie rodeo clown, if you will.
workworkwork
@redshirt: But what about the reverse vampires? Huh? Huh?
Corner Stone
Appropriately enough, the four part The Stand by Stephen King is on IFC channel right now.
Corner Stone
@workworkwork:
Ha! Nice try! Anyone can fish. Can you catch fish? Think we’re going to let you mooch off the rest of us while you drop a line in a nice pond and drink all our beer?
Steve in the ATL
@Mike J: I’m in, too. You will definitely need a labor lawyer to ensure that hunters are paid for their overtime, no zombie’s rights are violated, etc. I can’t think of a more useful trade in the event of a zombie apocalypse.
workworkwork
@Corner Stone: In my defense, I’m fine with potable water. More beer for the rest of you.
Just a poor, unprepared knowledge worker trying to survive zombies, boss. Put me to work
SWMBO
We (OldDave and our son and I) live in Broward County just north of Miami. We never got above tropical force winds at our house. We didn’t get much rain until around 4 in the afternoon. We put up all the storm shutters we could, then called it quits. Watched the updates on the projected track and said, “Fuck. We’ve got to finish up the ones we didn’t get done today because the SOB looks like he’s going to directly punch us next time. Well fuck.” We have all the hardware that we need, now it’s just putting it up. The good thing is that once we get everything covered, we don’t have to stand out in the wind and rain doing all the drilling and lifting the heavy parts in the wind (trying to tear the plywood or metal panel out of your hands). We first got plywood for hurricane David. Since then (after holding heavy plywood in place so you can get it back up) we started buying the metal hurricane panels and replacing the plywood with metal panels using permanent anchors. Putting the metal panels up with a cordless drill and a wingnut driver is hella easier than plywood and tapcons. We didn’t lose electricity but our neighbors did.
We let our dogs out between squall lines. They loved chasing the blowing leaves. When the next rain band hit, they reminded me that, even though they were fierce hunters, they were ready to be house dogs again.
Many years ago we had 5 dogs when Wilma hit. We knew it was coming and we stocked up ahead of time. Two of our dogs were from the pound and they were both terrified of storms. We tranked them and kept them on the bed. The house is on a concrete foundation and the entire house vibrated and hummed. The storm scared pair we put ourselves between them and covered them with a blanket. I bought a small sandbox (about 3 feet square) that we could put kitty litter in since we were expected to be in the storm for a while. The scary part was that it lasted over 10 hours for us and you could not escape the humming and vibration.
Aleta
@SWMBO: Those metal panels sound good. We made some tongue and groove cedar panels (not too wide so they stay light) to cover all our glass door sides on a a cabin, and so far (20 + years on) the fierce winter winds on the coast have not done any harm. The cordless drill is the ticket. Take care and stay safe and dry.