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--- Hurricane Irene (http://www.gatchamania.net/threadid.php?threadid=3786)
Posted by Ebonyswanne on 30-08-2011 at 02:04:
Just depends on where you are at the time it hits and what warnings people listened to.(A tree falling on a house is another thing, not everything can be controlled.) I can imagine some people would have be caught in cars trying to get home to family.
I haven't seen the news on TV in the last few days but have heard an update here and there on the radio.
Sydney doesn't get hit by cyclones but we still have some vicious storm fronts go through every few years. Living in the country regions I saw a few that did damage and caused deaths, my home town got caught up in 3 storm cells converging over the town and hit at once the results were not pretty. That wasn't fun at all to be caught up in... My father got injured helping people to safetly on the golf into the club course it hit that fast!
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Posted by amethyst on 30-08-2011 at 03:19:
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Yeah, the falling trees are just freaky accidental deaths.
However, people driving through flood waters is a different matter. I can't speak for the east coast, but we get lots of public service reminders warning us not to drive through flooded streets. It's people not paying attention to there surroundings or being to preoccupied to care. Even flash floods they do happen suddenly, but they don't happen without warning.
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Perspective Alters Reality
Posted by UnpublishedWriter on 30-08-2011 at 09:06:
Few people realize how easy it is for a car to flood and stall. The water may not look that deep to a driver.
Surfing during a hurricane is people being stupid: 'Dude, I can totally do this and it'll be sooo cooooolll!!!'
Pretty sure the boating is a combination of that and 'I have a boat, so I don't have to leave.'
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Posted by condorcandi on 30-08-2011 at 09:10:
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It tells you how people don't think or are stubborn, that all of the above are 'too commons' on the Darwin Awards.
But it's no easier on the families.
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Candi
Hollywood is a land of money and cowardice.
-Henry A. Lee, Cracked.com columnist
Posted by AllentownDarkWater on 30-08-2011 at 09:47:
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21 deaths? Where? All that happened here was the power went out a couple of times and the basement flooded a teeny bit. The only major problem I noticed was this one store being closed because they lost power. Geez, I didn't even know there were any deaths. Of course the deaths are not by any means good.
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Posted by Madilayn on 30-08-2011 at 10:07:
Allen, babe, you need to actually take notice of the rest of the world.
It sounds like you got lucky and didn't get much affect from the hurricane. Unfortunately, a number of other areas didn't get that same luck.
There was major flooding, some major damage, and, unfortunately deaths.
Some of the deaths were genuinely caused by damage from teh hurricane. What is even sadder, is some of the deaths were caused by humans being stupid.
Whilst I grieve for their families, I can't feel sorry for those who died becuase they were doing something stupid. All I can think of is the emergency workers who wer unable to help them - and who would be suffering because of that.
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"When I'm old, I don't want them to say of me, "She's so charming." I want them to say, "Be careful, I think she's armed." -G. Stoddart
Posted by green on 30-08-2011 at 10:24:
As I said before, Allen - you and your family were lucky.
Your family were prepared for the worst, and happily, you didn't need it this time around - kiss the ground and thank your gods!
I once slept through what I considered a rather weak typhoon only to walk the five minutes to work in the morning to discover the engineers there examining a gaping hole in the middle of the playground.
The sheer force of the water had washed the hole and created a cavern underneath the ground that was three times larger than the hole itself - there were very real concerns for the stability of our building!
Irene had a huge front to her.... hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones... they are not small, localised storms and just because your house barely got wet doesn't mean that down the road, your neighbours didn't swim through it - or fifty miles away, a family isn't grieving.
You have a very powerful tool in your Internet access, Allen - if you search it, you would find out all the information on Irene there is.
And you would know exactly how lucky you were.
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Exaggeration misleads the credulous and offends the perceptive. ~Eliza Cook
Posted by RIgirl on 30-08-2011 at 11:30:
Allen -- I’m sorry that Hurricane Irene did not live up to the hype enough for you. For those of us who live and work directly in its path, however, it was everything that was promised and more.
Over 750,000 people here lost power last Sunday -- and are not expected to be online again until next Friday or Saturday at the earliest.
Whole towns are completely submerged in flood waters; the property loss will amount in the millions.
I have friends who lived along the evacuated shoreline; I have not heard from them in days. I do not know where they were evacuated to, or if they and their families are safe. I can only pray that they are all right.
Entire fields of corn used as feed for dairy and beef cows have been lost, which means that come next winter, there will be a shortage of food for those animals.
An entire section of the County I live in is completely cut off. There is no way in or out of that area. Those who live there (including my mum, my 85-year-old uncle and a diabetic cousin) cannot be reached. I can only pray that none of them has a medical emergency because even if the EMTs are able to get to them, they would not be able to bring them to the closest hospital because several sections of the road there now no longer exist.
No, they did not evacuate because they were not told to do so. We live in a mountainous area. The roads that literally crumbled and collapsed were roads that were never affected by weather like this before. There was no way anyone -- short of being psychic -- could have predicted what was to happen. Now, we can only hope that the smaller roads, which are currently still covered with several feet of rushing water, subside soon so that they can get out safely. They are still without electrical power as well.
So, Allen, instead of complaining that the storm was not exciting enough for you, perhaps you should have kept those who were affected -- and those of us who continue to live with the aftermath of the storm -- in mind and thanked your lucky stars that your life, along with your family’s, were not affected.
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Posted by condorcandi on 30-08-2011 at 11:39:
Lee, thank you.
Most of what I've seen are Darwin Awards nominees and news reports.
Thank you for reminding us of the people behind this tragedy, and that while the storm may have spared some areas, it devastated others.
__________________
Candi
Hollywood is a land of money and cowardice.
-Henry A. Lee, Cracked.com columnist
Posted by green on 30-08-2011 at 11:47:
Lee.... words cannot describe how sorry I am to hear that you and your family have been so affected... It is so easy for us of those who only see these things briefly on the news to forget the long term - because it is no longer newsworthy.
Those farmers have lost their entire income for the year... The dairy and beef farmers will now be faced with higher prices for the feed they need in order to make a living next year...
Cut off communities may take months before they can move freely back and forth or get power or even more than the basic supplies the government think to send in..
My heart and my prayers go out to you and yours, Lee. I have my fingers crossed that you will be soon reunited with all those you cannot contact at the moment and that all are well.
And.... Thank you for giving us all a true perspective on the situation. Just because the news isn't reporting all of this doesn't mean it's not happening. It just means the news needs a dose of reality and to stop looking for the most ridiculous or the sublime to report on. Not all deaths were victims of their own stupidity, but honest to goodness people just swept up in Mother Nature's power.... shame that's not what they're focussing on though.
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Exaggeration misleads the credulous and offends the perceptive. ~Eliza Cook
Posted by condorcandi on 30-08-2011 at 11:57:
Link. Scroll down: There's photos of the severe damage near the bottom.
http://www.njherald.com/
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Candi
Hollywood is a land of money and cowardice.
-Henry A. Lee, Cracked.com columnist
Posted by amethyst on 30-08-2011 at 18:08:
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Be thankful, be very, very thankful. It was a big storm that came in weaker than expected, but dropping a lot of water. Imagine if it had come in at a Cat 3 like expected. It would have been worse than Katrina, and more widespread.
I live in a flood prone area, have been flooded out once and had a few close calls. It's not a fun thing to deal with. When in high school we lost a classmate to an act of stupidity during a flood.
All those people do either through their own ignorance, apathy, or recklessness is put other people in danger.
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Perspective Alters Reality
Posted by Madilayn on 30-08-2011 at 21:09:
Lee, you have no idea how worried I was for you, knowing where you live and that it was in the path.
I'm glad you came out of it OK - but I'm so sorry to hear that your family is cut off and hope that they will be able to be reached soon.
The worse thing about this sort of event is that you just can't predict what shall be damaged and how.
I agree with Amethyst - we can be thankful that it did come as a Cat 1.
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"When I'm old, I don't want them to say of me, "She's so charming." I want them to say, "Be careful, I think she's armed." -G. Stoddart
Posted by Becky Rock on 30-08-2011 at 21:16:
More than stupid. I value my life more than a cheap thrill.
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Posted by clouddancer on 30-08-2011 at 22:25:
The death toll seems to be increasing daily (I suspect mostly due to the rising waters as the rainwater flows down from higher ground) and although it may not have been bad in some areas, for such a large strong storm to hit anywhere as far north as it did, is a "big" thing.
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Posted by AllentownDarkWater on 30-08-2011 at 22:47:
I didn't mean to sound so careless when I made my original post. I was in a bad mood from something that happened to me personally that night, and I was really irritated that I just couldn't think about anything else and I was just mad that I worked my butt for nothing to be prepared for total chaos too.
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Posted by UnpublishedWriter on 31-08-2011 at 02:52:
That's the problem with storms: they can't be accurately predicted.
One week, a thunderstorm that was predicted to hit town quickly peters out -- but the next week, the one that was supposed to go one way ends up going another. Yet another doesn't last very long, but it dumps enough rain to float an aircraft carrier (or so it seems), after the weather service said it wouldn't be very bad.
I live far enough inland that we would not have been affected (except maybe for some rain). But we spent a week prepping one of our buildings in case patients were evacuated from Savannah. It's now fully furnished, and all we need to worry about are the details next time. One of these days, the evacuation will occur.
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Benefits, not features; benefits, not features
Posted by green on 31-08-2011 at 08:35:
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It is one of the problems with so much communication being done via the internet - we forget that on the other side of the screen, behind the posts, at the end of a bloody long cable, is a real person and not just the bunch of words we see.
I think that was your main issue here, Allen - you forgot that you were communicating with a lot of real people via this site. People who live anywhere from a just a few to thousands of miles away from you. In such a situation it is very easy to become 'me, me, me' because it is somewhat removed from the real life that surrounds us - we interact with an inanimate object (the screen) and every now and again something new we didn't put there pops up.
Sometimes it is amusing... sometimes it makes us think... and sometimes it makes us peeved or irked - but we rarely think of the real life human being behind the words. We rarely think of them on the same level as we think of ourselves because if we passed them on the street we wouldn't immediately recognise them for who they are. In other words, it is very easy to dismiss them - because, hell, we are here, we are real - they're just a bunch of words on the screen!
Okay... so you were angry about something that happened to you that same night.... And Irene didn't live up to your expectations... And by the sounds of it, you're in an area that doesn't get hit by tropical storms all that often - all this means it is far too easy for you to forget all the real people out there.
In saying that I understand how it happened, I would also heavily suggest, that for your own personal development, you find a way not to be so insulated and so cut off from the world in general that a major catastrophe becomes all about you and what you did in 'wasted' preparation for it.
Could you perhaps help fund raise for those most affected? Such activities can bring a great deal of personal satisfaction to those involved - this I can tell you from personal experience - although I can also tell you that it's a lot of hard work too! LOL
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Exaggeration misleads the credulous and offends the perceptive. ~Eliza Cook
Posted by clouddancer on 31-08-2011 at 12:14:
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Thank you Green for pointing this out. It is something we all need to be reminded of once in a while - or maybe it is only me who needs to be constantly reminded of it. It IS very easy to forget that the others we are speaking to on these boards are more than a bunch of letters strung together. Sometimes I also forget that what is written by a person is not expressed well because emotions are not conveyed with the written word. Most of the time emotions are conveyed in our voices and gestures, not in our words.
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Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things.
Posted by littlewolf on 31-08-2011 at 12:57:
We watch this on the internet, news reports, hear it on the radio, and we have an emotional reaction, but we are not there, so we can dissociate...
Those of us who have experienced natural disasters ( at any level) or have worked or volunteered in evac centers, impact zones or clean-ups have an understanding about what these people are going through.
Whether you are directly effected, know of someone, or have a previous related experience , it effects you and your view on things, and we all react differently.
Those people (Darwin Award nominees) who lost their lives, perhaps they did not think of the consequences or did not think it would happen to them, either way it's always a loss of another human life, and for others, they have to re-build their lives and figure out a way to cope with the loss of property, crops, and everything else.
Lee, I'll add you and your family to my prayers (sometimes not knowing is the hardest)
For all others affected, I'll add you too
Allen, it always pays to be OVER prepared, in every situation,
If you have a chance do some voluneer work, , walk in someone elses shoes for a while, you get to see your life and theirs from a different perspective and from my point of view I appreciate what I have and don't have so much more
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May the bad things get lost on the way to you door!
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