Sunday, August 28, 2005

Cat 5 Hurricane Rant

First, I would like to add my prayers to those of many of my fellow bloggers for those on the Gulf Coast in the path of Hurricane Katrina. I have already told you some of my thoughts about hurricanes. I hope that most of the folks in it's path have gotten out of there. If they haven't I pray that they are someplace safe.

Do you ever wonder who in their right mind would stay in the path of a Category 5 hurricane? (If you live in a cave and are unsure what that might entail, Angel explains it all very clearly here) Well, I will tell you. My in-laws, that's who. They live just outside of Biloxi, MS. PopPop, SD's dad, told us that he has boarded up his house and has a generator and he'll be fine. After all, he's not right on the beach. He's one mile inland. Dumb ass. But the real kicker is my s.i.l. and b.i.l. They have two kids, aged 8 and 5, and they have decided to sit it out too. They tell us that they have a brick house, so they will be okay. Until about 7:00 tonight, PopPop was going to be at home alone. This man is diabetic, with a bad heart, and lost an arm in a horrible car accident about 2 1/2 years ago. He thought he'd go over to his daughter's if it got too bad. Finally, he was convinced that if it was that bad, he couldn't drive over to their house. So they are all together in the oh-so-sturdy brick house. For the record, the SuperDome is designed to withstand winds of 200 mph. Right now the winds are sustained at 160 mph with gusts of 230 mph. But that is a building that was built to sustain those winds. The in-laws house was not.

I am just so frustrated by all this. If they didn't have kids, then fine, sit out what may be one of the deadliest hurricanes to hit the US. But don't inflict your poor judgment on your children. As I said last month I sat thru many hurricanes when we lived in NC. They were all very, very scary. But the biggest was a Cat 3 and we were about 95 miles inland. They were all still very destructive where we were. This will be so horrifying for those kids. It was to me an I was in my twenties. Another thing is that PopPop was with me during Hurricane Floyd in 1999. He saw what it did to our town. How could he possibly believe that he'd be okay through a Cat 5?? While sitting on the damn coast??!!

I just don't understand. I am really scared for them and really pissed at them for placing themselves unnecessarily in harm's way. I don't know what we would do if something should happen to one of them. So, once again, please keep my family and all of those in the path of Katrina in your prayers.

On the up side (what? you didn't think that there could be an up side to this?), SugarPlum is in full WeatherGirl mode. We have the Weather Channel (or as Busy Mom calls it "MTV for old people.") on full time. She can tell you the wind speeds, barometric pressure, probable strike zones, estimated damage and the history of other major hurricanes (Mom, were you alive when that hurricane hit in 1935?). She keeps calling this one "Catastrophic Katrina." We may have to start playing the Weather Channel Drinking Game.

Oh, and one last mini-rant...School starts Tuesday. The elementary is right across the street and SP is really looking forward to walking to school. Guess when Katrina is supposed to get up here to Ohio. Just guess. Stupid hurricane.

continued here, here, here, here, here and here.

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