Large Prediction problem... Mass evac./Complacency...

[ericinmia]

I am betting that even as Frances approaches the CONUS that the model guidance and track will still be erratic. This is going to cause a major dilema for evacuations from the keys, north all the way to jacksonville.

If by wednesday they have a better idea of where it is going, that will give about 24 hours or less for final prepartions, such as putting shutters up, and evacuating. The storm is supposed to begin to impact the CONUS late thursday.

I see this as quite the conundrum! How are they supposed to issue evacuations of MILLIONS of people, a day prior to the storms arrival. People are very ignorant right now, and will not have the proper time to prepare.

Right now i am in a compasionate mood; i feel sorry for these less educated of our populous; however, they are beginning to frustrate me. Today while out handling my normal business i heard others discussing, and i brought up the storm. The general consensus of these discusions was... "oh those storms never hit us", "that storm is going NW, i said it on the news", "yo i heard some trough was going to take it out to sea", etc. etc.

Generally i would say... hay darwinism at work... we'll be a better community after it.

The MAJOR dilema now is that these people's quest for guiness seaking darwinism is endangering my, and others lives.

The ill preparation by the above, will entail... lawn furniture, potted plants, sheets of plywood, and hundred of other random items to become missiles. The images of andrew are still to fresh in my mind, if entire sheets of plywood loddged ever so perfectly into palm trees, bricks that shot through houses like cannon balls, and many more memories that will forever color my ideas of hurricanes.

I'm at a loss what to do... however i believe that preparation is not being stressed enough, especially towards those that have fallen complacent. The evacutaion plans are simply not going to materialize... to many people are going to attempt to flee the storm all up and down the FL coastline, and our roads are simply not capable of handling rush hour traffic, let alone major evacuations of millions!

On a personal posetive note... I just installed my new vantage pro weather station today... and i will be broadcasting liive data every 5 min throughout the storm, while i have power. I will link everyone to my website when i have it all up and running.

God speed...
May all remain safe throughout whatever challenges us in the days to come.
-Eric

[Wainfleeter]

Eric,

It blows my mind how anyone living in Florida or any potential hurricane area could be complacent.

Do these people not pay attention to weather reports? Read? How can people not know what is going on around them especially pertaining to developments of storms?

Whether or not they will be 'hit' is not the point. Being prepared as I have read here many times over the last few years is so important. Regardless of what part of the world you live in, you should always have some sort of emergency supplies on hand. But in your part of the country even more so.

It really makes me shake my head.

~DonnaM

[ericinmia]

Yeah it almost allows me to justify in my head that they deserve what they are going to get.


-Eric

[stormcloud]

Maybe with what happend with Charley, people will understand the importance of the 'cone of error' now. Maybe people will wake up to the fact that when you live on the beach, there is a price to pay for the ocean front view they have everyday. There is a time to rise the stakes and a time to fold. Let's just hope that people know which one is which.

[FritzPaul]

Hopefully, images from Charlie will spur people on to listen to their local EMS!

[KeyLargoDave]

Keep in mind, thousands have to evacuate, maybe tens of thousands, maybe 100,000 even, but millions? That would be a worst case scenario of forecasting, civil management, and common sense.

If it's aiming at the Keys, it's only thousands. If it's aiming at Miami, it's Miami Beach. If it's aiming higher than Palm Beach, you get smaller areas that have people actually in storm surge danger zones.

Also, it's summer. Thousands of beachside condos are empty, and the retirees and snowbirds who are here can leave any time they want, they usually aren't juggling jobs and kids too.

Even an intense storm triggers evacuations only from east of A1A or dixie highway in most of dade and broward.

I'm being optomistic, still. I sure don't want all of Dade and Broward fleeing willy-nilly if I have to run north out of the Keys, so let's think positive, yeah?

Dave

[Dmetal81]

Dont forget anyone in those counties in a mobile home regardless of location. Mobile homes are always mandatory. Alot of mobile homes down there.....

[ericinmia]

I am too tired to search for you now, but it has even been disscused on this board. EM for dade county alone predicted about 2 million people would leave south fla, many requred, but many out of their terror from the end result of their exodus to the south durring andrew!

Broward, Monroe, and West Palm all have high numbers too. That adds up quickly.

WHEN YOU DON"T KNOW WHERE THE STORM IS GOING ala what happend in FLOYD (they should have known) they evac. all that MIGHT come in the path.

I have family high up in south fl polotics, this is the current situation...

-Eric

[stormcloud]

Dr. Neil Frank made a comment recently that although the past decade has seen an above average number of storms, they have been pretty well behaved and followed projected tracks. This has lulled people into complacency. Beginning last year with Claudette, these easy to predict, well behaved storms seem to be a thing of the past.

[ericinmia]

Yeah... wait till we get another betsy of sorts... that will shake things up!

-Eric

[canewatcher lucy]

I just lived through Charlie here in Fort Myers. It is hard to know where to go. The general evacuation instructions for Sarasota south to Naples is to head to the interior: LaBelle and Arcadia. I had thought of driving to Arcadia with Charlie, but the storm seemed to be going north and we stayed. I'm glad as we had some damage (lost our beautiful trees) and no power for 9 days but otherwise were fine.

Arcadia, a tiny little town, was basically levelled by Charlie. How a town of say 15k is supposed to accomodate the million or so people who live in the SW area is ridiculous. The roads would not accomodate this number and there is nothing there, literally now.

My plan is to leave here early Wednesday and head up the west coast into Alabama. If the storm turns and there is no danger here, hopefully we can just turn around and get back easily. My biggest fear is getting stranded in Alabama or Tennessee.

I am busy working on the restoration of Sanibel and Captiva homes. Supplies are difficult. A second hit here would be truly catastrophic. LCW

[kck70]

Got hit by C...now I am a believer...we get supplies ect. today! [/quote]

[PTPatrick]

It occurs to me that possibly one reason why the NHC seems very reluctant to blow the horn in any particular city yet is the issue of OVER-EVACTUION. This is what happened with Floyd. Perhaps they are hoping, that by not making any calls yet, less people(ones that dont REALLY need to leave) will not do do. I know that part of the evac problem is that more people always try to drive hours and hours to get out, when they could go to shelters. Maybe this is will cause more people to use shelters than highways.

[eastncweather]

I am just waiting and watching up here in NC nobody is really talking about it up here I guess they are waiting till it gets closer.

[nativeflacracker]

I agree with the complacency, I have heard that "I won't board up unless it's a Cat 5" and "If I leave, I'll wait till the last minute". Very stupid! I have been picking up supplies & groceries since Saturday to avoid the rush, it's just not worth it to ignore the danger involved here. I have noticed there are more people mentioning Charley so that may have helped light a fire under a few. The rest will just have to suffer from their ignorance and then cry for help after the fact. UGH!

[TLHR]

It's sad that poeple need a kick in the butt to raise their awareness.
In Charleston, a lot of people were surprised at the damage and flooding from Gaston. The good part is the awareness of Frances is high.

[cswitwer]

Last year when Isabel was so close, people in Charleston SC didn't think it would come here & were very complacent about it. "We don't get hit a lot, it won't come here... we never get hit anymore"

After Gaston last week, and the remnants of both Bonnie & Charlie, people are now really paying attention. One local said, "I guess the charmed days are over."

Better yet, local mets are telling Charlestonians to prepare to evacuate as early as Friday. They haven't said anything like that this far out in the last 2 seasons I've lived here. The only time they've said the word "evacuate" at all, it was 8 hours before Charlie swirled in off the Atlantic for its 2nd landfall.

Gives me hope that sometimes the local mets aren't afraid to warn people.

[Cookiely]

I asked my mother to make some extra ice and she asked me why. I said just in case Frances comes across the state. She said who's Frances. I want to scream.

[Tommedic]

Local TV people here are encouraging monitoring and preparing NOW. They emphasize this is a big storm and if it does come more north,it could be too late to prepare.

[adelphi_sky]

I understand your frustrations about complacency and lack of preparedness. But some of you are missing a few very important things concerning those who may not be as informed. It doesn't mean they are any less intelligent. Think about it. Some of these people may not have computers. Some may not have internet connections. Other who do, may not spend there free time surfing weather boards and such. Then you have people who lead busy lives raising children, or working two jobs who don't make it a point to turn to the TWC channel if they have cable at all. Then what about the high executive who's main priority is to keep the numbers looking good. He's buried in numbers all day. These people are not dumb. They just don't have the weather bug as some of us do. Or, they don't have the information on where to go to get the detailed reports that we get every three hours.