Hurricane Fear Support Group Meeting is on

[lucky-E-leven]

Bite your tongue, girl! I always make sure there's nutrious food for the dog. She will take my emergency Cheezwhiz when she pries it from my cold, dead fingers.

In a real emergency, she'll probably snack on my remains before I'm found. So in a way, she benefits from the Lifesavers, the CheezeWhiz and the Gatorade.

You're crazy. That dog wouldn't do any more than lick you to death. Wait, you're dead. Anyway, you know what I mean.



~lucky

p.s. Getting hilarious images of Sher dragging around a 40 lb sackc of dogfood on one shoulder and the t.p. (in a ziplock), lifesavers and cheez whiz in a stylish carrying bag.

 

[shereads]

Ziplock bags are essential. Keep important papers in ziplock bag in the refrigerator or something else that might be too heavy to fly.

This is Mega Doppler Weather, signing off.

You're crazy. That dog wouldn't do any more than lick you to death. Wait, you're dead. Anyway, you know what I mean.



~lucky

p.s. Getting hilarious images of Sher dragging around a 40 lb sackc of dogfood on one shoulder and the t.p. (in a ziplock), lifesavers and cheez whiz in a stylish carrying bag.

 

[lucky-E-leven]

Ziplock bags are essential. Keep important papers in ziplock bag in the refrigerator or something else that might be too heavy to fly.

This is Mega Doppler Weather, signing off.

Hunker down, sweetie. Let me know if you need me to come pick you up. I promise to bring a trunk load of chee-tos and funyuns. Oh, and a super sized pack of ultra soft, quilted t.p. For bartering of course.

~lucky

 

[GratefulFred]

First frisbees been thrown and...

...it's a total bust in Fort Lauderdale. Just went about 1 1/4 houses long. I'm giving up waiting for a good wind this morning. Hopefully this afternoon a few out bans will reach out.

Let us know how you west coast floridians are fairing before your power goes off. And if any of you see Jeb Bush and a few of his republican stooges trying to slip some new voting machines into the precincts take some pictures and send them to michaelmoore.com

 

[lucky-E-leven]

Update from Guacamole hell?

~lucky (nervous)

 

[Mhari]

Hurricanes are odd creatures. It seems as though very few ever do what they're supposed to do. I think they're nature's way of playing tricks on us silly humans.

Ever since Hugo, though, I'm rather wary of hurricanes. Most storms so at least turn north once they make landfall. Hugo was a very misbehavin' storm. He made landfall at Charleston, devastated the city (I still have newspapers with pictures that made the city look like a bombed-out ruin), then came barreling straight *west*, hitting us in Columbia where we weren't supposed to get much more than high winds and heavy rains. Nothing like being hit by a storm head-on when no one was expecting it.

Then there was Isabelle last year. She was supposed to be a big nasty horrible storm, passing right over where I live. Well, she did...the eye passed literally right over this town. But by the time she got here, there was next to nothing left. All of my frantic preparations for a bad storm were pointless.

However, I'm of that "better safe than sorry" mindset. Prepare your house for a storm, evacuate if they tell you to. Better to get out of harm's way than sit around waiting for nature to laugh at you.

Be safe, all of you!

~M

 

[BlackSnake]

is everyone accounted for?

Everyone in the wake of the storm, please check in.

 

[SeaCat]

Nothing here in West Palm Beach, although I am now watching the reports of two new Tropical Storms in the Atlantic while the wife is watching clips of the storm damage from charlie. (Typicaly she jumped two catagories in less than two hours. Who pissed her off?) <y prayers to the families of those in the mobile home parks who decided they didn't have to leave.

Cat

 

[BlackSnake]

Nothing here in West Palm Beach, although I am now watching the reports of two new Tropical Storms in the Atlantic while the wife is watching clips of the storm damage from charlie. (Typicaly she jumped two catagories in less than two hours. Who pissed her off?) <y prayers to the families of those in the mobile home parks who decided they didn't have to leave.

Cat

Yes, my thoughts are with them.

Shereads, where are you?

 

[BlackSnake]

Hello! Where is Shereads?

 

[shereads]

Head count....We didn't lose anybody to Charley & Co., did we?

 

[GratefulFred]

I'm a bit lost...

...but that happened way before Charley Brown.

 

[Seattle Zack]

What a bitch Mother Nature can be. Try as we might to tame or destroy the ecosystems that have evolved over millions of years, She still lets us know who's boss, like a dog scratching at fleas.

The Everglades have always been in a delicate balance, the freshwater emptying through the tidal flats, that yearly infusion supporting an incredible variety of life. In the forties and fifties, the developers began carving up the upper 'Glades with levees and canals, with no thought to the fish and birds (and Indians) who depended on this delicate balance for their continued survival. The comfortable existence of millions more non-native humans (and their dollars) was the developers' only concern. In the dry years, the developers pumped millions of gallons out of the swamp for the cities and farms. In the wet years, the state drained the "excess" to prevent flooding of the agricultural sectors.

Less and less freshwater changed the Everglades dramatically. Algae blooms erupted to cover hundreds of square miles, a stain that was visible from NASA spacecraft.

Of course, this produced the inevitable confusion among bureaucrats. Faced with a devastating blow to the tourist industry, the same politicians who had so generously served the agriculture lobby now began pontificating about ways to save it. For anyone seeking election in South Florida, saving the 'Glades became a mantra.

Speeches about tourism were replaced with solemn pledges to save the white heron (while still privately reassuring developers "Fuck the birds, you'll get your water"). Task forces sprang into action, multi-million dollar impact studies were completed, and nothing changed.

Sixty years later, the entire state is sick and dying. Encroachment in to the swamp has wiped out hundreds of species.

So, when Mother Nature delivers a gobsmack in the form of a couple of hurricaines, I can't really be too surprised or upset. Sure, it's bad that a dozen people in trailer parks got killed or whatever, but is it really that tragic? One hundred times that many die on Florida highways every year. When a storm is coming, get out of the way. On Mother Nature's cycle, things like this are as natural as the phase of the moon.

Reminds me of the morons we see up here in Washington every flood season. They build expensive houses on the flood plain or on slopes that are succeptible to slides (but the view is to die for!) and when the inevitable flood comes along every five or ten or fifteen years, you can count on the same local news footage of the bedraggled homeowner vowing to rebuild. In the exact same spot.

Living in the shadow of an active volcano and on a fairly active deep faultline, I only hope Her cycle doesn't include my six decades on the planet. But it's Her world --- we're just renting, and it would behoove us all to remember that.

--Zack