Geek Habitat

I understand that when you live on the coast, hurricanes are a part of life, just like the high humidity, the sea spray, the constant daytime breeze, the seagulls and tourist kitsch vendors. However, I was getting seriously stressed about Hurricane Katrina during my brief reading prior to her making landfall. 28 foot storm surge? Floodwaters overtopping 14 to 19 foot levees, creating an undesirable “flooded bowl” where water was never meant to stand even an inch deep? Mandatory evacuation of a city the size of New Orleans? Hurricane with all the hallmarks of being worse than Camille (1969)? What’s not to take heed of, here?!

Hurricanes are insidious I guess in part because they are relatively slow moving. You have far too much time to think, and create rationalizations for staying. Tornadoes, house fires, hazmat leaks in your neighborhood — these all involve split-second decision-making, and most people’s Gut Instinct tells them the cold, honest truth — “You MUST leave, and it must be NOW!”

Hurricanes roil off in the ocean/Gulf, changing in strength and precise course, allowing individuals and the news media to think and plot and make excuses. “We’ll be safe, if …” and they are part of a predictable pattern (hurricane season) so if you live on the coast long enough you start to think you “know” the hurricanes that threaten your area. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even life-long meteorologists and their state-of-the-art computers still do not know hurricanes. They’re making, at best, educated guesses and revising them hourly.

Anyway, I’m losing my train of thought so I’ll let this entry hang.