Floridian Optomism
Thursday, September 29th, 2022 08:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudioIt almost never makes sense to think about the United States as if it were one country. Not only is it technically, fifty countries, with very different cultures & laws, but in terms of geography, and weather, it's at least... seven different planets!
I live on the Great Lakes planet, where we have bad winters, and the occasional tornado.
But because the US has such a wide range of other natural phenomena, from earthquakes and wildfires, to hurricanes, there is a kind of obsession with weather channels and the drama they can show us happening in the different, far flung corners of our interplanetary empire.
So, hurricane season is always a big national spectacle every year, that you can't avoid, even if you live nowhere near the ocean.
Hurricanes can ravage both the gulf states, and the east coast states, but no single state is more prone to their fury than the big, long, peninsula state, sticking right out of the southeastern corner of the continent, where the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean meet... the state of Florida.
--<>--
Florida is our only tropical state. It's the only one that has native palm trees, and native crocodiles!*
It really is a completely different planet from the one I live on, and I always struggle to understand the mindset of the people who call that planet their home.
I gather that they see it as a kind of paradise... because it's tropical.
Like California, it's a place to go if you simply cannot stand the winter. You'll never have to put on gloves, or shovel snow in Florida!
But... I mean... there are crocodiles and it gets up to 110F with 90% humidity every summer?... like?... you must REALLY hate winter to see that as an even trade off! Not to mention giant bugs and spiders, lizards instead of mice, and... yes... hurricanes!
But the hurricane part is what I understand least, because Floridians always act like they're not a big deal!
------------{=0=}------------
Hurricane Ian just hit Florida on Wednesday... and devastated much of the state so badly that... I can't even tell you the extent tonight, because it's too soon, and they haven't gotten their heads around it yet.
But NOAA, and the weather channels were all saying, back on Monday and Tuesday, that Ian was gonna hit Tampa! It was for sure gonna hit TAMPA!.. as a CAT4, on THURSDAY! 130 MPH winds in TAMPA, on THURSDAY! 10FT storm surge around TAMPA on THURSDAY!
Then on Tuesday night, they updated their predictions and said... it's still for sure gonna hit Tampa... but only as a CAT3, and maybe late Wednesday night instead of Thursday morning.
BUT by that point everybody had evacuated the Tampa area, and now... CAT3 sounded MILD compared to earlier predictions of CAT4, so... everybody else in Florida who hadn't evacuated... breathed a sigh of relief!
See?.. these things are never as bad as they say, huh?
But then, IAN wound up making landfall as a goddam CAT5**... way the hell SOUTH of Tampa... at goddam 3:00 in the afternoon, on Wednesday!... way sooner than anybody expected... way stronger... and way further south!
So everybody in that southern region of Florida's west coast were caught with their pants down!... and buildings were flattened... trees fell left and right... storm surge was up to FIFTEEN feet!... cars were floating away... HOUSES were floating down the streets!... it was total devastation!
--<>--
So, people in other states were like, serves them right for not evacuating!
And survivors in Florida were like, Fuck you! It was supposed to hit Tampa!.. tomorrow!.. as a CAT3! We had no warning about this! What were we supposed to do?
But my question is, why... would anybody living on this tropical planet of Florida... NOT... ALWAYS... be prepared for the absolute worst?
--<>--
Like, I know!.. I know!.. NOAA let you down! They swore to God it was gonna hit Tampa on Thursday as a CAT3, and that's not how it played out.
And a BIG part of that failure is the fact that meteorologists have become these media rock stars obsessed with the spotlight, who are insanely overconfident about their ability to predict the weather***!
But the fact remains, that if you live in a state for which there is an ANNUAL HURRICANE SEASON... like winter is a season on my planet... then you HAVE TO KNOW... there is NO WAY... you will make it twenty years, without wind ripping your roof off, and a foot of water flooding your living room****!
It's a GUARANTEE... that at SOME POINT... in any twenty year span... you're house WILL be destroyed by a hurricane!
The diameter of Ian was TWICE the width of Florida! ALL hurricanes are big enough to cover the entire width of the state!
No, Florida does not get a direct hit every year. No, not every direct hit is that bad. But if you think you can make it TWENTY whole years... ANYWHERE in Florida... WITHOUT watching your roof fly off as your car floats away?..
...That's what I'd call, unreasonable optomism!
------------{=0=}------------
You had people in Tampa, who did evacuate, getting angry that they'd done so for nothing! All this money! All this preparation and hardship... for NOTHING!
But then you have people further south who can say nothing to us tonight, because the power is out and if they've survived, they're still in total shock!
But the through-line that connects them both, is this Floridian attitude that prepping for hurricanes and evacuating, is a huge pain in the ass, to be avoided at all costs!
And yeah!... I imagine it would be a huge pain in the ass!.. if, for some reason, you were absolutely NEVER prepared in the least for an existential threat to your property and your life that... COMES BACK EVERY SINGLE YEAR!
--<>--
You see these people screwing plywood over the windows!
HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF SHUTTERS?
Window shutters are a centuries old technology, that's only purpose is to protect windows from storm damage! So WHY are they not only standard, but REQUIRED on all Florida homes?
Because they're UGLY!
Why are residential roofs held down by nails, which are designed to pull out... instead of bolts?
Because they're too EXPENSIVE!
These homes are designed as if they're living on MY planet! They're not protected in the least from high winds and flash floods... but WHY?
You shouldn't have to be running to Lowes to get plywood at the last minute to screw over your windows, while scrambling to pack up your belongings and run from the annual threat to your existance.
Why is evacuating so hard? Shouldn't there be shelters all over the fucking place? Shouldn't everybody have go-bags ready all the time? Shouldn't there be a fleet of helicopters or special rodways, or some infrascructure to make it doable?
Shouldn't it be basic to the culture... to have your whole life tailored to the hurricane threat?
------------{=0=}------------
On my planet, when snow and ice season comes... we don't rush out to buy gloves, shovels, and salt at the last minute, because we heard something about a storm that seems legit.
I have an ice scraper in my car all year long. I have winter clothes. I buy five bags of salt every October. We own shovels & snow blowers. Our cities have teams ready to plow the streets all night long, as it falls. Legions of subcontractors are ready to plow every parking lot.
Our roofs are rated for insane snow loads. We have weatherstripping around our doors and windows.
People have alternate sources of heat, like wood stoves, and gas heaters. We have generators in case the power lines ice up and fall down. ComEd is ready to restore that electricity in the worst blizzard.
This is not a brag!
This is simply stating that, on my planet... we are well aware of the annual threat, and being overly prepared for it is... part of the culture!
Not every winter is bad.
But you can't expect to live here twenty years without getting hit by one polar vortex, where it goes down to 25F below! You can't expect to live here twenty years without living through a mega-dump of three feet of snow overnight!
You can't expect a single winter without two straight weeks below zero, and one, drifting blizzard, which means the snow is piling up in wind-driven drifts that can be several feet high.
We know this.
Is this a pain is the ass?
YES!
But we don't just sit around in the summer, sweating our asses off, thinking, "There is no way it's gonna snow again! No fucking way!"
We don't survive a polar vortex and then throw our gloves and shovels in the dumpster like, "Fuck this shit! Thank God that's over!"
We don't remove the weatherstrip around the doors and windows in the spring like, "Good riddance! Now it's gonna be fresh air for the rest of our lives!"
Because... THAT WOULD BE STUPID!
------------{=0=}------------
At this point, you might be thinking, Yeah, but Hurricanes are WAY more devastating than blizzards, and it would be WAAAY harder to be constantly prepared for that level of damage all the time! Apples & oranges!
But is it really apples to oranges?
Or does it just SEEM like we have it easier, because we're so well prepared, it's never a problem?
Look no further than Texas in February of 2021... when a mere cold snap down to 30F... just two degrees below freezing... paralyzed the state!
Pipes were bursting. Homes were flooding. Electricity was gone! People were getting hypothermia and dying, and suffered for over a week, as all businesses shut down and evacuation was impossible... because all the roads were too SLIPPERY!
That devastation happened because... THIRTY DEGREES FARENHEIGHT!
So... do we really have it easy up here?
Or are we just smart enough to know how fucking dangerous life gets below 32F, and have engineered our lives around dealing with that?
Texas doesn't get that cold every year.
But we do, because up here, it's a SEASON!.. that we take seriously!
------------{=0=}------------
Where am I going with all of this, and when the hell will I wrap it up?
Okay!.. my big observation here is this:
Those who cannot deal with winter, dream of a paradise where there is no winter.
And because Florida is tropical, it attracts those people... who seek to live carefree, year round, with no worries about the weather.
Because only this type of person settles in Florida... an unreasonable optomism is HARD WIRED into the culture, that refuses to acknowledge it is anything less than paradise.
This means they do not prepare... and do not vote for a government that would prepare... for hurricanes... much less require building codes to be on that level, or provide shelters.
To a Floridian, Hurricane season is a fun time of year when they get attention... until it's not.
And when it's not... where it's not... FEMA will come to their rescue!
--<>--
It's a different planet... but it's just as hostile, if not more than my planet.
Yet, the inabitants want to pretend it's a paradise... to the point that any prep to the contrary is off the table! It's too much of a buzz kill! That's not why we moved here!
And so they live out this endless tragedy... where one town and another is leveled and flooded... and they are in total shock... and we come in to save them.
--<>--
Take my tax money, that's fine! I'm not gonna complain about it.
Take my tax money, because we have plenty... but don't ask me to feel all broken up and say prayers for your planet... on the annual.
--<>--
I know that sounds a bit harsh but... that's how I feel about it.
°¦}
* There are also crocodiles and Alligators in Louisiana, in the bayou, but... they almost certainly were introduced there from Florida, by human intervention.
** Two MPH shy of a CAT5, which, for all intents and purposes, is a CAT5!
The whole catagorization scheme of hurricanes is misleading anyway, based solely on windspeed, when it should take into account storm diameter, rainfall, storm surge, and speed, because if it stalls... that's worse. But... this was a CAT5, insofar as what we imagine the ferocity of such nomenclature to mean.
*** My NOAA weather app on my phone is notoriously always wrong about everything! The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration of the US is probably the best on the planet... but still suck ass at even predicting a rain shower.
**** Given the existing building and infrastructure codes, which are not anywhere close to what they should be for a hurricane planet.
https://soundcloud.com/snoozefestaudio
I live on the Great Lakes planet, where we have bad winters, and the occasional tornado.
But because the US has such a wide range of other natural phenomena, from earthquakes and wildfires, to hurricanes, there is a kind of obsession with weather channels and the drama they can show us happening in the different, far flung corners of our interplanetary empire.
So, hurricane season is always a big national spectacle every year, that you can't avoid, even if you live nowhere near the ocean.
Hurricanes can ravage both the gulf states, and the east coast states, but no single state is more prone to their fury than the big, long, peninsula state, sticking right out of the southeastern corner of the continent, where the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean meet... the state of Florida.
Florida is our only tropical state. It's the only one that has native palm trees, and native crocodiles!*
It really is a completely different planet from the one I live on, and I always struggle to understand the mindset of the people who call that planet their home.
I gather that they see it as a kind of paradise... because it's tropical.
Like California, it's a place to go if you simply cannot stand the winter. You'll never have to put on gloves, or shovel snow in Florida!
But... I mean... there are crocodiles and it gets up to 110F with 90% humidity every summer?... like?... you must REALLY hate winter to see that as an even trade off! Not to mention giant bugs and spiders, lizards instead of mice, and... yes... hurricanes!
But the hurricane part is what I understand least, because Floridians always act like they're not a big deal!
Hurricane Ian just hit Florida on Wednesday... and devastated much of the state so badly that... I can't even tell you the extent tonight, because it's too soon, and they haven't gotten their heads around it yet.
But NOAA, and the weather channels were all saying, back on Monday and Tuesday, that Ian was gonna hit Tampa! It was for sure gonna hit TAMPA!.. as a CAT4, on THURSDAY! 130 MPH winds in TAMPA, on THURSDAY! 10FT storm surge around TAMPA on THURSDAY!
Then on Tuesday night, they updated their predictions and said... it's still for sure gonna hit Tampa... but only as a CAT3, and maybe late Wednesday night instead of Thursday morning.
BUT by that point everybody had evacuated the Tampa area, and now... CAT3 sounded MILD compared to earlier predictions of CAT4, so... everybody else in Florida who hadn't evacuated... breathed a sigh of relief!
See?.. these things are never as bad as they say, huh?
But then, IAN wound up making landfall as a goddam CAT5**... way the hell SOUTH of Tampa... at goddam 3:00 in the afternoon, on Wednesday!... way sooner than anybody expected... way stronger... and way further south!
So everybody in that southern region of Florida's west coast were caught with their pants down!... and buildings were flattened... trees fell left and right... storm surge was up to FIFTEEN feet!... cars were floating away... HOUSES were floating down the streets!... it was total devastation!
So, people in other states were like, serves them right for not evacuating!
And survivors in Florida were like, Fuck you! It was supposed to hit Tampa!.. tomorrow!.. as a CAT3! We had no warning about this! What were we supposed to do?
But my question is, why... would anybody living on this tropical planet of Florida... NOT... ALWAYS... be prepared for the absolute worst?
Like, I know!.. I know!.. NOAA let you down! They swore to God it was gonna hit Tampa on Thursday as a CAT3, and that's not how it played out.
And a BIG part of that failure is the fact that meteorologists have become these media rock stars obsessed with the spotlight, who are insanely overconfident about their ability to predict the weather***!
But the fact remains, that if you live in a state for which there is an ANNUAL HURRICANE SEASON... like winter is a season on my planet... then you HAVE TO KNOW... there is NO WAY... you will make it twenty years, without wind ripping your roof off, and a foot of water flooding your living room****!
It's a GUARANTEE... that at SOME POINT... in any twenty year span... you're house WILL be destroyed by a hurricane!
The diameter of Ian was TWICE the width of Florida! ALL hurricanes are big enough to cover the entire width of the state!
No, Florida does not get a direct hit every year. No, not every direct hit is that bad. But if you think you can make it TWENTY whole years... ANYWHERE in Florida... WITHOUT watching your roof fly off as your car floats away?..
...That's what I'd call, unreasonable optomism!
You had people in Tampa, who did evacuate, getting angry that they'd done so for nothing! All this money! All this preparation and hardship... for NOTHING!
But then you have people further south who can say nothing to us tonight, because the power is out and if they've survived, they're still in total shock!
But the through-line that connects them both, is this Floridian attitude that prepping for hurricanes and evacuating, is a huge pain in the ass, to be avoided at all costs!
And yeah!... I imagine it would be a huge pain in the ass!.. if, for some reason, you were absolutely NEVER prepared in the least for an existential threat to your property and your life that... COMES BACK EVERY SINGLE YEAR!
You see these people screwing plywood over the windows!
HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF SHUTTERS?
Window shutters are a centuries old technology, that's only purpose is to protect windows from storm damage! So WHY are they not only standard, but REQUIRED on all Florida homes?
Because they're UGLY!
Why are residential roofs held down by nails, which are designed to pull out... instead of bolts?
Because they're too EXPENSIVE!
These homes are designed as if they're living on MY planet! They're not protected in the least from high winds and flash floods... but WHY?
You shouldn't have to be running to Lowes to get plywood at the last minute to screw over your windows, while scrambling to pack up your belongings and run from the annual threat to your existance.
Why is evacuating so hard? Shouldn't there be shelters all over the fucking place? Shouldn't everybody have go-bags ready all the time? Shouldn't there be a fleet of helicopters or special rodways, or some infrascructure to make it doable?
Shouldn't it be basic to the culture... to have your whole life tailored to the hurricane threat?
On my planet, when snow and ice season comes... we don't rush out to buy gloves, shovels, and salt at the last minute, because we heard something about a storm that seems legit.
I have an ice scraper in my car all year long. I have winter clothes. I buy five bags of salt every October. We own shovels & snow blowers. Our cities have teams ready to plow the streets all night long, as it falls. Legions of subcontractors are ready to plow every parking lot.
Our roofs are rated for insane snow loads. We have weatherstripping around our doors and windows.
People have alternate sources of heat, like wood stoves, and gas heaters. We have generators in case the power lines ice up and fall down. ComEd is ready to restore that electricity in the worst blizzard.
This is not a brag!
This is simply stating that, on my planet... we are well aware of the annual threat, and being overly prepared for it is... part of the culture!
Not every winter is bad.
But you can't expect to live here twenty years without getting hit by one polar vortex, where it goes down to 25F below! You can't expect to live here twenty years without living through a mega-dump of three feet of snow overnight!
You can't expect a single winter without two straight weeks below zero, and one, drifting blizzard, which means the snow is piling up in wind-driven drifts that can be several feet high.
We know this.
Is this a pain is the ass?
YES!
But we don't just sit around in the summer, sweating our asses off, thinking, "There is no way it's gonna snow again! No fucking way!"
We don't survive a polar vortex and then throw our gloves and shovels in the dumpster like, "Fuck this shit! Thank God that's over!"
We don't remove the weatherstrip around the doors and windows in the spring like, "Good riddance! Now it's gonna be fresh air for the rest of our lives!"
Because... THAT WOULD BE STUPID!
At this point, you might be thinking, Yeah, but Hurricanes are WAY more devastating than blizzards, and it would be WAAAY harder to be constantly prepared for that level of damage all the time! Apples & oranges!
But is it really apples to oranges?
Or does it just SEEM like we have it easier, because we're so well prepared, it's never a problem?
Look no further than Texas in February of 2021... when a mere cold snap down to 30F... just two degrees below freezing... paralyzed the state!
Pipes were bursting. Homes were flooding. Electricity was gone! People were getting hypothermia and dying, and suffered for over a week, as all businesses shut down and evacuation was impossible... because all the roads were too SLIPPERY!
That devastation happened because... THIRTY DEGREES FARENHEIGHT!
So... do we really have it easy up here?
Or are we just smart enough to know how fucking dangerous life gets below 32F, and have engineered our lives around dealing with that?
Texas doesn't get that cold every year.
But we do, because up here, it's a SEASON!.. that we take seriously!
Where am I going with all of this, and when the hell will I wrap it up?
Okay!.. my big observation here is this:
Those who cannot deal with winter, dream of a paradise where there is no winter.
And because Florida is tropical, it attracts those people... who seek to live carefree, year round, with no worries about the weather.
Because only this type of person settles in Florida... an unreasonable optomism is HARD WIRED into the culture, that refuses to acknowledge it is anything less than paradise.
This means they do not prepare... and do not vote for a government that would prepare... for hurricanes... much less require building codes to be on that level, or provide shelters.
To a Floridian, Hurricane season is a fun time of year when they get attention... until it's not.
And when it's not... where it's not... FEMA will come to their rescue!
It's a different planet... but it's just as hostile, if not more than my planet.
Yet, the inabitants want to pretend it's a paradise... to the point that any prep to the contrary is off the table! It's too much of a buzz kill! That's not why we moved here!
And so they live out this endless tragedy... where one town and another is leveled and flooded... and they are in total shock... and we come in to save them.
Take my tax money, that's fine! I'm not gonna complain about it.
Take my tax money, because we have plenty... but don't ask me to feel all broken up and say prayers for your planet... on the annual.
I know that sounds a bit harsh but... that's how I feel about it.
°¦}
* There are also crocodiles and Alligators in Louisiana, in the bayou, but... they almost certainly were introduced there from Florida, by human intervention.
** Two MPH shy of a CAT5, which, for all intents and purposes, is a CAT5!
The whole catagorization scheme of hurricanes is misleading anyway, based solely on windspeed, when it should take into account storm diameter, rainfall, storm surge, and speed, because if it stalls... that's worse. But... this was a CAT5, insofar as what we imagine the ferocity of such nomenclature to mean.
*** My NOAA weather app on my phone is notoriously always wrong about everything! The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration of the US is probably the best on the planet... but still suck ass at even predicting a rain shower.
**** Given the existing building and infrastructure codes, which are not anywhere close to what they should be for a hurricane planet.
