Paxety Pages

First, Hurricane Floyd in 1999. It was a category 5 hurricane that moved up the Atlantic just off the Florida coast.  It never made real landfall in Florida (in landed in North Carolina) but it could very easily have. Here in Jacksonville, it got close enough to destroy the public fishing pier. As Floyd moved closer, Governor Bush was on television telling people what to do. Mayors and local officials were on television telling people what to do.  As it got close to Jacksonville, Mayor John Delaney and Sheriff Nat Glover (whose in charge of all police functions in the city and county) were on TV frequently. Delaney is a white Republican - Glover a black Democrat. Politics had nothing to do with it.  They made sure that everyone knew were low lying areas were. They made sure everyone knew where the shelters were. As the storm got close, they advised that the next morning they would consider ordering a mandatory evacuation, and they told everyone to gas up cars and pack what they would need to take that night. In the morning, they did order an evacuation, and folks were prepared.

Contrast that with New Orleans.

A lot of folks are talking about the poor in New Orleans - how they couldn't leave.  As Floyd approached Savannah, Georgia, the mayor ordered the entire city evacuated.  He rounded up city transit buses and school buses and got the poor people out of town. Again, contrast that with New Orleans.

In 2004, four hurricanes and one tropical storm hit Florida over a period of about six-weeks. Once again, the governor and the local officials took charge. They made initial assessments of damage, then made requests of the feds. Things went as smoothly as could be expected in such a situation. Nothing like New Orleans. Except, of course, the incompetence of FEMA, which paid for hurricane damage in Dade County - a county that was not hit by the hurricanes.

In short, your first line of defense is you. Use your sense in knowing what weather you can handle at home - and when you need to leave. Have an evacuation route planned - maybe more than one. Insist that your local government have a working disaster plan. It's the local folks, not the feds, that will be able to keep you alive in a disaster. The feds can only help with the cleanup.