Let me know if this sounds familiar: There’s a hurricane forming somewhere down in the Caribbean. It’s hitting Haiti at the moment and will probably proceed into the Gulf, where it will almost certain intensify and could potentially threaten Houston.
Gotta love hurricane season. Also gotta love the crazy amounts of hype and the even crazier amounts of dumb people.
One of the best local resources for hurricane knowledge, in my opinion, is Eric Berger’s SciGuy blog over at the Houston Chronicle. Berger is normally a science reporter, not a weatherman, but due to public interest and demand, he always ends up following hurricane season quite closely. Today he posted a good article about historical trends of storms forming in the general region of this storm at this time of year, his main point being that it’s far too early to really predict where Hurricane Gustav will go.
It’s a good article, rational, reasonable, avoiding the alarmist behavior that most of the local media engages in with abandon during hurricane season. Too bad the public isn’t rational or reasonable. Check out some of the comments:
“We live in Sugar Land. Would we need to evacuate? We have two small children and don’t want to take any chances.”
Dude, I understand that you are concerned about the safety of your family. But come on. Sugar Land? Sugar Land, which is miles and miles from the coast? You will get rain, you will get wind, your street might flood like it probably already does during a heavy rain. But come on. You will not be underwater. You might lose power, so stock up on some bottled water and canned food. Be prepared to go a few days without air conditioning. Bring the patio furniture inside and hunker down away from the windows, but there is no need to leave town and clog the roads!
“How safe should I feel in Katy if Cat 3 or 4 heads our way??”
I can’t even answer this one, because it has already been answered quite appropriately by another commenter who said: “Let me be the voice of reason….If you live in Katy, it could be a CAT 5 and I wouldn’t evacuate. You’re 40 [actually, they’re more like 55-60]miles from the coast. Do people in Orlando evacuate when a hurricane hits the east coast of Florida? Calm down.”
There is a map right here that can help you figure out if you need to leave your home. Notice that Katy is not located in any of the four evacuation zones. Nor is Sugar Land. Heck, I live right on freaking Clear Lake and Galveston Bay is only a few miles from my apartment and I’m only in evacuation zone B, the third of four, which means I don’t leave until it’s at least Category 2!
People never learn. When Hurricane Rita threatened us three years ago, we evacuated to Conroe, a suburb on the north side of town. While we hung out at Gavin’s parents’ house, we watched their neighbor drive away in their Hummer with 3 gas cans strapped to the roof. They were evacuating…from Conroe.
Sigh.
SciGuy should answer as follows: “Evacuate now while you can. Get to Dallas as soon as humanly possible. Do not return under any circumstances.”
Seriously. If the only evacuees were folks shown oon the maop, there wouldn’t have been a traffic problem back in the days prior to Rita, which I kindly refer to as the “hurrication”.
We live about 2 miles from the tippy-top of area 3 and never considered leaving. we did, however, board up all windows and fill many, many coolers with bags of ice, included one sealed with dry ice. Another day of mandatory work holidays and my liver might have evacuated.
Righteoo, Jamoosh.
I used to be in zone c…now, we’re so far in BFE that we have no worries at all. The hype in the news is hilarious.
Your dead on about SciGuy. Great science blog with local interest. I read his blog religiously.