Gulf Coast States

[Munchkin03]

Originally Posted by Blondie93

I understand how perplexing it can be when people choose to stay in their same town following hurricanes. Here is a little bit of "the other side."

My in-laws live in the panhandle of Florida... about 5 minutes from the coast. They both work at Eglin Air Force Base, and have for over 30 years. While they have been pummled by multiple hurricanes (damage to house, but never leaving house inhabitable) they are at an age where going elsewhere for a job is not realistic. In addition, if they can last until next December with the Air Force, they will get a handsome retirement package. (They are civilians with very specialized work... going to a different base is apparantly not really an option either.)

Hey, that's where I grew up...but we were right on the coast. After Opal in 1995, my parents moved inland, into a home that has only received damage to the privacy fence during Ivan and Katrina. They have another property, a 65 year old house that my grandfather built, that has never been damaged by the ten or so major storms that have hit.

It's really up to the individual person. My parents are in their 60s--seriously, are they going to move anywhere else at this point? That is where they grew up, and where their parents still live. Why should they leave, anyway? They have excellent hurricane (wind + flood) insurance where they've never had to make a claim, and not one but two homes inland that haven't sustained damage.

--------

I can't get worried about this storm until the weekend. Once it goes into the Gulf, it's anyone's guess. Almost every storm that goes into the Gulf has a potential track around NOLA. But, only one has hit the city directly in a while.

[AGDee]

You forgot one disaster... Detroit has it's Mayor.

[SWTXBelle]

Originally Posted by bayoubengalzta

I'm an LSU student and I'm from New Orleans. The semester before Katrina hit, I declared Disaster Science and Management as my minor. Truth is, there is nowhere in the country that is not at some constant risk of a major disaster. Yellowstone National Park is a gigantic volcanic crater, any coastline is at potential risk for a tsunami, both tornadoes and earthquakes can happen just about anywhere (yes, there is a faultline closer to the Gulf Coast than the San Andreas out in Cali), and of course, all of us here along the Gulf know hurricanes are fairly commonplace. The trouble always happens because people become complacent and stop testing and improving their response plans or rely too heavily on technology(when the power goes, you're screwed). This stuff is going to happen, we're always a lot closer than we like to think to the next big disaster. I got really angry when there was talk about not letting people rebuild in certain areas. It's everyone's responsibility to be prepared and the failures during and after Katrina were not entirely FEMA's fault. A lot of that was on the local agencies. I'm not worrying about Gustav yet, it's way too soon to really be able to predict where it will make landfall with any kind of accuracy, it could head to Mexico as easily as it could hit the Gulf Coast.

Thank you for this response - yes, if you try to live someplace that is not threatened by one sort of natural disaster or another you will end up having no place to live.

I do hate that so many in New Orleans are not raising their homes because of the delay in funding. Yes, rebuild, but rebuild so you aren't in the same sort of danger. I know Florida tightened building codes after Andrew because they found much of the damage was the result of slipshod construction. That, I think, is the answer - require residents to build in anticipation of natural disasters.

[honeychile]

Originally Posted by Jen

It's like the mofo's here who buy a house within a 10 minute drive of the airport, and then bitch about the planes flying over their house.

*groan* I know flight attendants who live within two miles of the airport and complain about the noise! Just once, I'd like to shake them and ask them why they chose that as a career.

[srmom]

My grandparents lived in Seabrook (2 blocks from the Gulf) during Carla - they stayed, but after that, they got out of town anytime a cat. 4 or 5 was looming.

I was going through rush when Alicia hit (!), and going home saw signs of flooding, and downed trees. I think my parents had no electricity for a day or two.

My parents left for Rita, but my father has mad navigational skills - he went by backroads to Tyler.

The problem with going north is that often that is where tornadoes form.

I lived in Baytown (was a baby, not tooooo old) during Carla, my dad was an chem engineer at the Exxon Refinery, we lost EVERYTHING! The house flooded and it was unrepairable, so we moved into town.

During Alicia, I was recovering from surgery at Memorial City Hospital. The hospital (and that whole side of town) lost power (parents house was out for 2 weeks). There was no air conditioning in the hospital, and the water pumps were out, so the nurses were having to flush the toilets with rain water collected in trash cans. I was so morphined up that I wasn't uncomfortable, but I have weird recollections of my dad visiting me dressed like the Gordan's Fisherman, head to toe in yellow weathers.

My dad lives in Shoreacres now, right on the water. He will pack up and come stay with me in west Houston about 45 minutes from the bay.

People in my neighborhood evacuated during Rita, which is so stupid!!! The old adage is "Run from Water, Hide from Wind" and no storm surge could reach where we are. Best you can do is board up the windows to protect from flying debris and hope a tree doesn't fall on your house!

Also, at the age my dad is now, 83, he just locks the door and says goodbye to the things, because his attitude is, "they're just things". His health is what's precious now...

[FlaGirl07]

I'm from Panama City originally, moved away, but moved back when I was 8 in 1995. Hurricane Opal was the first hurricane I'd ever been in, and for some reason I was so completely fascinated with it. I would stand outside for an hour under an awning and just watch the clouds speed by. Even to this day I still try to go outside for a little bit and just watch all the action.

The last hurricane I remember to actually freak me out was Hurricane Ivan back in 2004. That one spawned tornadoes a few blocks from my house and knocked the power out for about 3 days. "Thirty-two more deaths in the United States were indirectly attributed to Ivan. Tornadoes spawned by Ivan struck communities along concentric arcs on the leading edge of the storm.[18] In Florida, Blountstown, Marianna, and Panama City Beach suffered three of the most devastating tornadoes. A Panama City Beach news station was nearly hit by an F2 tornado during the storm." It also wiped the I-10 bridge out in Pensacola. I am terrified of tornadoes. I was at lunch at Kappa today and I was amazed at how the girls from up north and out west were absolutely terrified of hurricanes, but don't bat an eyelash at tornadoes. I mean, I can swim great; flying...not so much.

Fay really did a number on the Tallahassee area. Many places were completely flooded and trees were down all over the place. I don't think this area could handle ANY more rain, especially from Gustav. I'm going home this weekend so hopefully Gustav doesn't change his path and stays far, far away!!

[Kevlar281]

Originally Posted by Tippiechick

Why people choose to live, build, and rebuild homes in these areas is beyond me...

Because you haven't lived until you've drunk bleach water.

/sidenote: I'm going to be pissed if this screws up the opening weekend of Dove Season.

[AGDee]

I've actually given a lot of thought about where I'd want to live related to which natural disasters are prevalent there. I know that's odd, but I grew up with a horrific phobia of tornadoes which has calmed down with my exposure (via the news) to hurricanes and earthquakes. This is how I rank them (worst to least worse)

1. Earthquakes: You have no notice and they devastate a huge area including much of the infrastructure (think San Francisco during the World Series in .. was it 89? 90?) Newer buildings are supposed to be earthquake proof, but since you don't know when it's coming, you don't know where you'll be so there is no way to even try to be safe.
2. Hurricanes: They can devastate a huge area but you have a lot of time to get out. If you ride it out though, there is a dilemma. They spawn tornadoes, but if you go to a good tornado shelter area in your house, you risk being flooded out. The combination of flooding and tornadoes makes it more scary. To keep safe from tornadoes, you go low, to keep safe from flooding, you go high. I don't think I'd choose to live too close to the coast, as beautiful as it is.
3. Tornadoes: They are devastating to a much smaller area, you usually have a little bit of warning to get to a sheltered area. The big difference though is the first part. In Michigan at least, when there is a tornado, it might hit houses along a mile path, but the hotels two miles away are unscathed so there is somewhere you can go if your house is destroyed. We also have basements in Michigan, so they are much less scary. I think they'd be more scary to me if I didn't have an underground shelter. If I lived in a place without an underground shelter, I'd build a safe room or I wouldn't choose to live there.
4. Flooding: I think that I would choose not to live so close to a high risk flooding area to make this one a problem. It is certainly devastating and it does seem to happen pretty quickly. I think if I lived along the Mississippi where they have been completely flooded out more than a couple times in the last decade, I'd move. The places in California that have mudslides, I'd avoid. Shoot, I'd avoid California because of the earthquake thing anyway.
5. Snow Storms: These seem like no big deal to me. They hardly ever damage your home and in places where they are frequent, we have snow plows and stuff to deal with it. We've never been "snowed in" for more than a day and it's been no big deal. It's more of a daily hassle of a few inches every day that makes driving annoying and stressful but there's relatively little damage.

So where is the ideal place to live based on this? I dunno. The mountains in North Carolina?

ETA: I'm getting really bad vibes on the Gustav thing ... not like it's the media over-hyping it, but like it's really not going to be good.

[Nanners52674]

So I don't live down south so my experiences with hurricanes is limited to just one. . . Hurricane Eduardo in 1996. . . My family has a summer house on Nantucket and we were out there for vacation when we got word it was going to hit I was only 9 at the time but i remember my dad taking me out to the end of the island to see the huge surf with the surfers in and the ferry ride home when it was still rough seas and the waves were splashing up the side of the boat. . . But at 9 I actually thought the whole experience was pretty fascinating. . .

[epchick]

Originally Posted by AGDee

So where is the ideal place to live based on this? I dunno. The mountains in North Carolina?

El Paso....lol. In my lifetime, we've only had 1 tornado scare, back in 1998 (from what I remember), but the tornado never touched down. We have experienced "flooding" but that's only because we barely have any storm drains, and the drainage in the city is CRAPPY. Can't get hurricanes because we are far from the water, and by the time the storm gets anywhere near here, it's pretty much a thunderstorm. Snow storms, in the desert? Not really gonna happen. And we aren't on a fault line.

[SWTXBelle]

But . . .it's El Paso.

[epchick]

Originally Posted by SWTXBelle

But . . .it's El Paso.

Hey Hey Hey, watch it now!

But you're right! lol

[SWTXBelle]

Well, you do have your very own Marty Robbins song!

[AGDee]

Originally Posted by epchick

El Paso....lol. In my lifetime, we've only had 1 tornado scare, back in 1998 (from what I remember), but the tornado never touched down. We have experienced "flooding" but that's only because we barely have any storm drains, and the drainage in the city is CRAPPY. Can't get hurricanes because we are far from the water, and by the time the storm gets anywhere near here, it's pretty much a thunderstorm. Snow storms, in the desert? Not really gonna happen. And we aren't on a fault line.

Alright, we're moving 300,000,000 people in.. ready?

[ComradesTrue]

Originally Posted by SWTXBelle

But . . .it's El Paso.

Giggle. That was my thought.

FWIW- my 94 year old great-aunt has lived in EP her whole life. She has not a single living relative in EP anymore, but no one can convince her to move. She thinks it is the best place on earth and loves the brown mountains!

So.. we all take turns flying in from all corners of the country to check on her and keep her company periodically. Nothing like a nice "vacation" to El Paso! (but the food is good...)