In 1900, eight thousand people died in Galveston died because they didn’t know the hurricane was coming.
This time, there’s been a best-selling book about that 1900 hurricane. The National Weather Service did not fuck around. They used the words “WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH.” This from a government agency that doesn’t ever raise its voice! You know Galveston is one of the most vulnerable places in the country to storm surge. You know the evacuation is for real and for serious. You know the hurricane is coming.
And you stay. Well, fine - I think people ought to be allowed to die however they like.
Oh, what now? You want a HELICOPTER. Well, isn’t that cute?
All’s I’m sayin’ is, you better pay for that helicopter. Hazard pay.
Seriously, I’m irrationally angry at these people. I cried when I read Isaac’s Storm, thinking about those poor people trapped on that island, thinking about the water rising and the debris wall sweeping the ground clean and taking you with it, and those nuns roping themselves to the kids - it’s really all too much. It just fills me with absolute fury that you can know that and have the benefit of everything we know about predicting these things, things we developed for you, and you don’t move your fucking ass and then we’re supposed to rescue you and feel sorry for you because you were too fucking stupid to get out. It’s not my nature to say that people deserve to die, but honestly, if you live on a spot that was literally wiped clean from the earth in a hurricane in 1900 and the National Weather Service tells you YOU WILL DIE and you stay and then you want us to come save you? Well, sorry. Lie in that wet-ass bed. If that makes me a bad person, so be it.
Someone was talking tonight about how a lot of folks just heard the part about “category 1 or 2” and not about the storm surge. They are expecting winds which they can hide from. In fact, this afternoon as the water was rising into the streets, several people being interviewed by media expressed surprise that there was “flooding without rain”. I don’t think the point got over to these folks.
The mayor of Galveston, apparently, was another one who was not convinced of the storm surge; and so the dangers weren’t broadacast from the top. People who are caught up in their daily lives just didn’t pay enough attention to the hurricane.
On the other hand, one would think that the lessons of past hurricanes would sink in. Anyone who was in the cone 3 days ago should have had their evacuation plans finalized.
They live in Galveston. I know one thing about Galveston; that the whole thing disappeared from the face of the earth for a bit in 1900. I imagine if I lived there I might know a few other things about Galveston, like where the Publix is and what the TV channels are, but I assume I’d also still be clear on that “obliterated” bit.
ETA - I’m not saying this as somebody who lives in Kansas - I’ve seen a major hurricane up close and real personal (Hugo). We watch 'em in South Carolina. There’s no way an approaching hurricane isn’t everyday conversation in Galveston the same way it is here, and we’re quite a ways from the coast here in Columbia. My parents live on a barrier island in Florida and you better damned well bet they keep an eye on the storms. People who live in hurricane areas watch that shit like a hawk, in my experience.
My husband was expressing the same sentiment as you, Zsofia. What’s mitigating their seeming stupidity is that the evacuation for Rita in 2005 was a total fucking disaster. People were stuck in traffic for upwards of 12 hours, even 30 hours in some cases, in 100 degree weather, and there were several fatalities. And it turned out to be unnecesary after all. People swore they would never do it again. Consequently, I think it might be disastrous again, in a different way.
They watch it, but depending on the local history, may not take it too seriously. I don’t know what Galveston’s hurricane history has been like in more recent years, but in Nova Scotia while storms are watched, they’re not major concerns–very few make landfall that far north, many of those that do fall below hurricane status, and nearly all hit one end of the province or the other, where the population isn’t dense. When Juan hit, no one was prepared, because it was a total fluke–we’d never had a storm that strong in recent history, and certainly not one hitting Halifax.
While there were certainly warnings before the Juan hit, I think I lot of people thought it would either weaken or veer east, because hurricanes just don’t make landfall up there.
I can also see what NinetyWt is saying about not hearing about the storm surge–I don’t think it’s something that most people understand well, although the term gets thrown around every time a hurricane is moving up the coast. The storm itself isn’t likely to cause much damage, but in this case that’s not where the biggest danger lies.
They may also be thinking of the recent doom warnings for Hurricane Gustav, and that one turned out to be not so bad. Possibly in an attempt to err on the side of caution after Katrina, the hurricane warnings from the authorities are beginning to be a little more melodramatic. The downside of that is people may stop taking them as seriously as they should.
I understand the ‘stick it out mentality’, to a point. I lived through more than a few hurricanes in the southeast US. It made more sense to risk tornados and lightning inside a brick house full of food and water 10 miles from the beach, than to risk car accident or driving through floodwaters in order to seek out a motel room further inland. But if I lived on a barrier island? Fuck no, I’d have left long before the certain death warning.
2 questions plague me:
What do the “stayers” in Galveston think they are going to do for several hours while their houses are partially/completely underwater and are being struck by huge waves? Take a drive? Step out for a pizza? Grow gills? Fly? Hide in a submarine?
How is staying in a house that will almost certainly be at least partially covered by the ocean in the middle of a hurricane safer than the remote risk of dying in a flooding-related driving incident?
I honestly think that the people staying did not expect the water to come this high. There is a little coastal motto: “Run from water, hide from wind”. I believe they think they can hide from this one.
Zofia: Half of me agrees with you. I went to elementary school in Columbia, back in the 60’s. People there remembered Camille. I remember the natural gas company had these huge billboards up REMEMBER CAMILLE !!. That was because the gas never went out although the electricity apparently did.
I don’t suppose I should tell y’all that there is a virus lab in Galveston?
The virus lab has shut down and culture destruction procedures for emergencies like hurricanes. It means they’ll have to re-do some work and research, but that’s the price you pay for the location.
I never heard that one, but I agree with the premise. However, the scientists who study this stuff for a living have been saying that Galveston is going to get the water.
It’s a free country, and the rest of us have a moral obligation to step back and let them get killed in any damn fool way they please. But, it is the height of reckless arrogance for any any non-meteorolgist in Galveston to decide, based on the view from the porch, that those egg-heads with the satellites know less about the weather than oneself. Not that I wish them any harm, I just hope nobody from the Coast Guard gets killed trying to rescue their know-it-all asses.
I saw an interview this afternoon with one pair of ride-it-outers in Galveston – a couple of beer-bellied good ol’ boy types who boasted they’d be stayin’ so’s they could paaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrr-ty!! through the storm. When asked what they’d do if things got really bad, one of them allowed as how he’d grab him a surfboard and ride a wave outta there, hyuck hyuck hyuck.
Am I a bad person for harboring a wish that those idjits find themselves face to face with their own mortality tonight?
I said it when Katrina came through and I’m saying it again: People, if blues singers write songs about how crappy your weather can become, GET THE FUCK OUT WHEN YOU ARE TOLD TO! How many times can someone sing, “When the levee breaks, got no place to stay,” or “Galveston had a seawall to keep the water down, but the high tide from the ocean sent the water over the town,” for you to listen?
I nominate some of the people of Galveston for a Darwin Award. I appreciate what they are doing for the gene pool, as long as I don’t have to pay for it.
If you ignore a mandatory evacuation, then have to call for help, are the authorities allowed to send you a bill for rescuing your sorry ass, when it’s safe for them to come get you?
I can understand some people being wary of evacuating, since I understand it may be difficult to get back home and the idjits who do stick around may feel free to do some good old-fashioned looting. But if you’re going to stick around after people who are probably smarter than you are telling you to get out, get out now, and by the way, did we say move your butt? then it should be somewhat painful, financially speaking, if you then have to call 911 because um, the Gulf of Mexico is now in your living room and you’re climbing up on tables to get away from the alligators.
