I have a cousin who lives at the beach, and she won't leave if a hurricane is coming because

the damage done inland was much greater there in her world. It was all I could do not to gawk at her. She came down from Maryland after Hugo and saw the chaos. Yes, there was inland damage, but it was a ginormous hurricane that blew the hell out of the entire state.

Then she said that they only had to worry about ONE tree if a hurricane did hit. I was looking out into her backyard where there were approximately eleventy billion trees. I asked how she came to this conclusion. A hurricane had brushed the coast one year. She had determined from that which way the wind would blow and then checked her trees to see which ones would be trouble. I was thinking about how the wind will change directions, tornadoes that are spun off, and trees that are picked up and launched like missiles.

She had one more factoid for me. She had looked at a map and determined how high her area is from sea level. She doesn't live far from the shore, and it wasn't very high. I did tell her that Highway 17 was a road and not a wall. It parallels the coast.

There are a lot of places she could stay. Her mother is over ninety and in a nursing home. Her daughter had back surgery, and it went wrong. She has trouble moving. She won't bring them inland. We have tried to talk to her. However, she knows everything and won't listen. My mama refused to talk about it after a while because it pissed her off so much.

When I was leaving that day, I told her I had one request. Would she put me in their wills so that I could inherit whatever was left when they were all lost? Cold I know. She just laughed.
*******************

Until she really gets hit with one, nothing will change her mind. A lot of people along the eastern seaboard have never really felt a hurricane. Those in the NE have only been grazed. They won't or can't believe how bad it can be. The people on DU who are worried the most are those who have been through them. Once you have had the pleasure, you will remember it!
It may not be as bad as imagined, and one can hope. However, it's better to be prepared than to take chances. Unfortunately, a lot of people learn the hard way what we are talking about.







***Meh Kitteh Fights For America!**********Republicans Fight for Big Money!*****

She may think she knows, but she doesn't. Speaking as someone who has sat through 3 of them in my lifetime.

Wondering if she knows what she's in for . . .

I was 2 years old when we had to go to the schoolhouse to stay because of Hurricane Hazel. I lived through Hugo. People who have really been through one know better.

Here was Hazel's path:


It may stay further to the east than Hazel. Here were the effects of Hazel as she went north:

Wind Gusts from Hurricane Hazel
Hazel lambasted southeastern North Carolina with some of the most destructive winds in the state's history. The strongest winds ripped through the coastline between Myrtle Beach SC and Cape Fear NC, including wind speed estimates of 125 to 150 mph at Holden Beach, Oak Island, Calabash, Little River Inlet, and Wrightsville Beach.

The highest measured winds were 98 mph in Wilmington, and 106 mph in Myrtle Beach, SC, while Fayetteville and Raleigh-Durham measured gusts of 110 mph and 90 mph respectively. Sustained 2-minute average winds of 78 mph were also observed in Raleigh. Other inland areas such as Goldsboro, Kinston, and Faison reached wind speeds estimated at 120 mph.

The storm maintained its intensity further inland than most storms because it was moving so quickly, reaching forward speeds of near 55 mph. Hazel accelerated northward through Raleigh, Richmond, and Washington, D.C. within a 4 hour period, and all the way to southeastern Canada within only 12 hours of landfall. Sustained hurricane force winds overspread all of eastern North Carolina, Virginia, and the lower Maryland eastern shore, including 79 mph in Raleigh, 78 mph in Norfolk, and 78 mph-Washington, D.C. The highest gusts at these locations approached or exceeded 100 mph, including an unofficial gust of 130 mph in Hampton, VA. Locations as far north as New York State observed winds in excess of 90 mph.

Hurricane Hazel Storm Surge
The already remarkable damage Hazel inflicted was exacerbated by the timing at which the hurricane struck. Landfall occurred during the full moon of October - the highest lunar tide of the year. A storm surge in excess of 15 feet inundated southeastern North Carolina from Southport to Topsail Beach, with an astounding 18-foot surge reported at high tide at Calabash and on the island of Holden Beach. Incredibly, all but 12 of the 300 cottages in Holden Beach were destroyed. The surge also leveled many of shrimp houses that lined the riverfront, and put coastal Brunswick and New Hanover counties under water, effectively wiping out the beaches. The surge even reopened Mary’s Inlet, which had been artificially closed during the summer of 1955 by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Hazel's Impact Felt Across the Eastern Seaboard and Southern Canada
A total of 15,000 homes or buildings were destroyed throughout the state, including some 39,000 damaged structures. Thousands of trees were downed by the combination of tropical-rain soaked ground and ferocious winds. 30 of North Carolina’s 100 counties sustained major damage. Based on reports from residents in the capital city of Raleigh, an average of two or three trees fell per city block, many on homes, automobiles, and power lines. In all, an estimated $136 million in damage occurred in North Carolina as a result of the mighty hurricane. Damage reached to nearly $281 million when the dollar damage in NC was combined with damage estimates from the rest of the United States. The storm went on to produce another $100 million in damage in Canada, as it accelerated northward and became extratropical. Most of the damage there resulted from heavy rain, nearly a foot in less than twenty four hours, associated with the remnants of Hazel. When all was said and done, the death toll included: 400-1000 in Haiti, 6 in the Bahamas, 95 in the US (including 19 deaths and 200 injured in North Carolina alone), and 100 more in Canada.
http://www4.ncsu.edu/~nwsfo/storage/cases/19541015/

The damage will be much worse now because the areas that will be affected are packed to the gills.







***Meh Kitteh Fights For America!**********Republicans Fight for Big Money!*****

but I understand perfectly well what you are saying.

And I worry about the damage, potential and real from this. and I agree with you.. storm surge tends not to mean a thing unless you have a real deep training on this or have personally experienced it.

The same goes for the winds...

Good luck, but I was told by some here that warning people to keep an eye on this and all that was hawkish....

:hug:

Will her PD run a mandatory evac? Sometimes that is what it takes....

Bad decisions are sometimes fatal. Don't fuck with Mother Nature!

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/article.html

Both sides of that road were wall-to-wall houses. Ike was 'only' a Category 2 at landfall.


Here's a before-and-after of another part of the peninsula:

Here's a photo site of more: http://traincarhobbies.com/photo_page_IKE.html


Another impressive one from the same site:




:o

in Louisiana for their "bigger and better" developments. At the same time, studies have been done on the relationship between storm surges and the ability of cypress forests to pretty well negate the surges.

I've heard the same for mangroves but there's some controversy on the studies performed.

from what i understand...

and I offer this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/us/05missing.html?ref=hurricaneike

The cousin should read it.

"Searching for Hurricane Ike Victims
Some may never be found."

What I find so unfortunate is even with all the news footage and the stories and personal accounts, some people just will not believe the awesome power of natural disasters until they live through one or more. Some don't live through them, too...

and he took them very seriously. Personally I'll ALWAYS evacuate at least 400 miles in the future. Living weeks without electricity and scarce resources in the August heat after a major hurricane is unpleasant, to say the least.

the sentence is death,
there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.

here's wishing the best for everyone...

:hi:



P.S. you do not f*ck with Mother Nature...!

I'd been through 3 hurricanes before Katrina - I've lived on the Gulf Coast all of my life in various places, and figured that I knew how bad it could be. Oh how wrong I was.

in the late '40s, and I lived there until I moved here to North Georgia in 1989. I have been through many, many hurricanes and do know how treacherous they can be and the damage they cause. But those who have not experienced hurricanes do not know how powerful these storms can be.

The only problem here in Georgia is the tornadoes in which there is no advance notice. Fortunately, though I live in tornado alley, the tornadoes have only brushed by my area but they are scary when the tornado sirens start blasting. At least those who are in the path of a hurricane have plenty of advance warning to either get out of town or hunker down,

and now lives in Kill Devil's Whatever, NC, has gone to Asheville!!!

then in the opposite one.

The specific direction(s) the wind will blow will be different depending on which part of the
eye passes over.

The issue with trees coming down is also related to how much rain you get. Hurricanes are usually accompanied by
several days of rain and this has the effect of softening up the ground making it easier for trees to uproot.

Does your cousin have a basement that is likely to remain above water level ?

have basements. The water table is too close to the surface. I didn't see a real basement until I went to college in the foothills.








***Meh Kitteh Fights For America!**********Republicans Fight for Big Money!*****

Hurricane Juan met up with a low pressure area and dumped a couple of feet of rain on West Virginia overnight. More than 40 people were killed, mostly by flash floods. Some of the bodies have never been found.

Hurricanes are no joke.

- with apologies to Jimmy Buffett

I was in Key West 10 days after Hurricane Wilma side-swiped the island (not a direct hit, thank goodness). Even then, it was pretty rough. There were still entire blocks without electricity and appliances and other household possessions strewn in the street. Palm trees stripped of their fronds. I also saw the FEMA tent erected and a line of people filling out forms. Plus a few boats (cabin cruisers) sunk in the shallow waters.

Me, I'm just hoping my neighborhood does not have a situation like the aftermath of the nor'easter we had in March 2010, when we had no electricity for 5 days.

Of the 23 guests, 3 or 4 survived. I wish your family well but Darwin had a point-the fittest survive.

A 'cane can pop a roof like a soda can tab.

Its all like rolling the dice, no place on earth is safe.

why more people don't is beyond me. It's not like you can "protect" your house from damage by staying in it!