I went through Hurricane Hugo at Naval Station Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico, where the eye passed directly overhead. There is no description, not even visual documentation, that can adequately convey the sight, the sound, the fury, or the aftermath of a storm of that magnitude. On an island, there is no place to hide. Great podcast. Thank you.
Growing up in New Orleans and living in S. Louisiana I've gone thru my share of hurricanes starting with Flossie. I suggest that everyone live above sea level and preferably at an elevation higher than the maximum possible tidal surge. As a teenager during Betsy and Camille, the wind blew fiercely, and the house shook badly. It went on for hours and seemed like it would never end. I didn't want to experience that any more so now we prep well before the storm and drive north or west away from the storm and get back home to begin cleanup soon after the storm has passed. For Katrina we left town with 15 cats and 2 dogs in our 2 pickup trucks. We had 13 cats with us when we fled Ida last year. The edge of Ida's eye wall passed over the house, but the house was undamaged. The trees took a beating. For a very long time New Orleans had a legendary meteorologist named Nash Roberts. He was contracted by the oil companies as their weather advisor, so he had weather instruments located on oil platforms and buoys in the Gulf. Even into the modern era, his tracking predictions tended to be better than all the other weathermen. He also served in the Navy as Chester Nimitz's meteorologist.
In 1963 Hurricane Flora went through the Caribbean but just missed my island of Trinidad. The wind and rain however was scary. The next day I remember the skies were as clear as I have ever seen and the birds were very loud. In 1979 when at Sheppard AFB a killer tornado passed through. The next day the air was thick and everything was dark and cloudy. It seemed like particles were just suspended in the air which was quite a contrast from the hurricane whose aftermath felt more like a fresh new beginning.
This is why I love central New Mexico--no hurricanes, no tornadoes, mostly dormant volcanes, super-mild earthquakes, very few floods. Most of our "natural" disasters relate to wildfires. Hurricanes seem ... frightening.
Nash Roberts was in the navy and one of the early folks to fly over the hurricanes in navy planes to study them. He credited it as a big part of what taught him how to judge weather patterns to be so accurate with his forecasts. It was a loving joke to acknowledge Nash's whiteboard - On TV he would show hurricane tracks using a whiteboard and marker long after everyone else was showing the computer models. It wasn't that he didn't use the av liable computers. His "cone" was almost always smaller than what anyone else showed., He said he just felt the whiteboard was eaiser for laymen to understand.
It made me think of course, of the 1929 Marx Brothers movie made 3 years after the hurricane. Groucho was trying to sell lots in Florida, and not doing particularly well at it.
No "clipper ships"; Biscayne Bay is pretty shallow. In fact, at the time the only way to reach the open sea from Miami was first to sail south and west through the Keys to Key West!
Have you ever done a story on a Labor Day hurricane in islamorada. Local government center has a map of where they picked up bodies all the way out to flamingo and there are a few accounts of Ernest Hemingway bringing his fishing boat up and seeing bloated bodies all over the place
Ever since I was a kid, after explained to what a hurricane or tornado was, I wondered why it was even legal to live in deadly targeted weather areas...why was everyone else's insurance used for claims by those living in a really dumb area?
If you think about it, there are almost no areas without the potential of terrible natural disasters - tornadoes, wildfires. earthquakes, hurricanes. Pick your insurance poison. That being said, some are easier to build against or evacuate from than others.
Where would you suggest people live where there are no hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, forest fires, tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes, droughts, floods, etc., etc.? On the moon? --As for insurance, the State of Florida at least provides this for rich people who can afford mansions and private beaches. Paid for of course by the taxpayers.
at a buffet, i personally sneak corndogs into the buffet so others can enjoy them. I hide 6 corndogs in my jacket pockets. it then, is a joy for me to see other patrons of the establishment eat my corndogs thinking they were part of the buffet.
