Now that the storm has passed, the finger pointing has started in earnest. People are asking why Lee County wasn’t evacuated earlier. Others are wondering why so many people did not evacuate even after they were ordered. The Governor is blaming the media. It is all part of the “it’s not my fault” syndrome that plagues our nation every time we face a natural disaster.
The truth of the matter is that we are always going through this exercise because politicians simply don’t want to do the courageous thing. And, they fail to learn from past mistakes. If they did learn from those past mistakes, maybe fewer people would not ignore orders to evacuate and maybe fewer people would die from a preventable death.
In order to properly be ready for the next Hurricane, and that may be sooner than you think since another possible storm is already heading to the Caribbean, we must understand just what these storms can be and can do. And, we must also point out that not being in the center of the storm does not make you safe from it.
Hurricane Ian was a huge storm. Not just in intensity but also in size. Photos showed the storm almost covered the entire state of Florida. Therefore, saying it was only supposed to “hit Tampa” is a false cry and ignoring of the facts.
Near Fort Meyers are barrier islands. Those are low lying areas and any storm surge was going to place them in serious danger. It wouldn’t take a direct hit on these islands for the storm surge to be dangerous and deadly. Storm surges can happen hundreds of miles away from the center of the storm. The sea is very big and the waves can be very dangerous even if you are not directly hit.
So, the question is why did it take so long for them to be evacuated? And, why did so many people on those islands refuse to leave? The answer is simple, no one pays attention to past experiences and just don’t want to believe it “can happen to me”.
Educating the public is critical in making preparations for storms like Hurricane Ian. The public must understand the full potential for danger from these storms and they must be prepared to leave before it is too late. However, no one really takes responsibility to educate the public on the full dangers of these storms. They don’t show the people the real dangers and don’t explain properly the dangers even if you don’t get directly hit.
Then we have the problem of evacuation orders being issued and then the storm bypassing the area. People then say “well the next time I can’t trust the officials and I won’t leave”. Once that mindset sets in, more people die from pure stubbornness than anything else.
We must also take into account that Florida is basically a low-lying area. Most of the coastline is at sea level. That means even a six foot storm surge can cause billions of dollars in damage and kill hundreds of people. In the Fort Meyers area it was estimated that the storm surge was up to 12 feet. A 12 foot storm surge would inundate a one story house. If you refuse to leave, you could be drowned in your own home.
I have lived in hurricane prone areas of the country. I worked on disaster relief for several hurricanes and other natural disasters. The one thing I can say for sure is that the governments of these states do not educate the public as they should. They do not give proper information to the public on the dangers of the storms even on the peripheral. As a result, the public is not really prepared for taking proper actions to protect themselves.
There are things that can be done that aren’t. Florida has a very large senior citizen population. It takes longer for seniors to prepare to leave. In some cases, they cannot leave on their own because of medical conditions. I have always believed that we need a system where anyone who has physical conditions that make it difficult or impossible to leave on their own should be recorded and they should be the first to be evacuated.
The system would work in a way that those who are unable to leave on their own would be on a register. When these storms are set to hit, people on the register would have volunteers show up and help them get out. These evacuations should happen first and early enough so they are safe.
Another real problem is that many people who are on life support systems are living at home. Those people cannot be ignored either. The volunteers who help them evacuate need to be equipped with the necessary life support equipment to safely evacuate them.
The second step is to issue mandatory evacuation orders for all low lying areas. We can no longer afford to allow people to remain in flood prone areas. Better yet, we shouldn’t even allow people to build houses in flood prone areas. Of course, that would take courage for politicians to pass laws that forbid this practice. Especially since people want to live “along the coast” to get that “view”.
We are told that if you live in a low-lying area you should have flood insurance. However, many people cannot afford flood insurance. The premiums for such insurance is very high. Plus, when these disasters hit, insurance companies actually face bankruptcy because of the payouts they must make. So, in steps the Federal Government to cover the costs.
The fact of the matter is that these storms are going to get worse. The damage caused by them is going to get worse. One expert said this nation is facing a “billion dollar natural disaster” about every nine minutes. I am not sure that is totally accurate, but when you consider the wildfires, the drought and Hurricanes, it probably is true.
With climate change warming our planet and warming our oceans, sea levels are rising. Glacial Ice is melting at record paces and that excess water is draining into the oceans causing them to rise. That means that low-lying areas of today are going to be underwater in the very near future.
It also means that storm surges will go further inland than they have in the past. Areas that are not considered “low-lying” today will become low-lying as the sea rises. People who don’t see flooding from storm surges will see it in the near future.
All of this comes down to this. We as a nation must decide what is more important. Are we going to continue waiting for a disaster to kill our fellow citizens and then start pointing fingers, or are we going to take action to help prevent people from suffering and dying?
If this were truly a “Christian” nation as some want you to believe, then the answer would be we would take action now. We would know that people are far more important than property or politics.
It is time for government and our politicians to take action. We need to work to stop climate change before it is too late. We need to work to make our energy sources more climate friendly and renewable instead of finite. We need to educate people who live in disaster prone areas of the dangers they face and even force them to evacuate when disaster looms.
Only, as usual, in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian where dozens of people were killed and the total is still rising, we only hear arguments and finger pointing. We never hear about how things can improve with simple actions. We hear “now is not the time to talk about it” and then we never talk about it.
Predicting the weather is very hard. When we are talking about hurricanes, the actual path it takes will vary depending on other conditions. In this case, there was a cold front over the Eastern U.S. and the hurricane bumped into that. That helped cause the hurricane to wobble and even change course.
This storm proves that we cannot look at a chart with the paths of the hurricane predicted and just look at the tiny thin line indicating where it is headed. Instead, we need to look at the cone that indicates where it “might” go. If we look at the cone for this hurricane, you will find that where it hit was in that cone. Officials who looked at the cone and understand the dangers of even being in the cone could have and should have acted sooner.
That action could have saved lives. That action could have lessened the disaster in terms of human life. But, they apparently focused on that thin line instead of the whole picture. That is their fault. Past hurricanes have shown us their unpredictability and their “direct path”. They have shown that they do move unexpectedly and if we aren’t prepared people suffer and die.
I simply do not understand the stubbornness of government officials who refuse to learn from past events. I cannot believe that they are so cowardly they refuse to do what is right. But, time after time, we see the same thing. We see people not being evacuated because the storm “isn’t supposed to directly hit them”. We see people ignoring evacuation orders because they just don’t understand the dangers.
I do not blame officials when people “refuse” to evacuate. That makes it the fault of those who refuse to do the right thing to protect themselves and their families. But, I do blame officials who delay evacuation orders because they are afraid of backlash or because they are afraid someone will say they made a mistake.
I would rather see officials make a mistake by evacuating areas that may not have needed to be evacuated than not evacuating areas and seeing people die as a result. Officials need to look at the “cone” and prepare to evacuate everyone in low-lying areas inside that cone. Otherwise, we will see the next hurricane kill even more people that don’t need to die.
Mother Nature can be very dangerous. However, in cases like hurricanes, she gives us plenty of notice to get out of the way. Our problem is that too many officials are not brave enough to make the right call to protect their citizens. Instead they are too worried about the next election.
Don’t you think it is time we start learning from past mistakes? Or, are we just fodder for someone else’s headlines? As things stand, we must prepare to watch more disasters needlessly kill people because officials refuse to learn from the past.
Lean Left World 