"Terry Gowan" t wrote in
message ink.net...
"eüphemism" wrote in message
...



Hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and ice storms. They're all useful in
cleaing out the gene pool. The people I least understand are the
Californians that re-build their homes on the side of a mud-sliding
mountain.

Terry Gowan


It's not so much where you live but how...

I have as much sympathy as anyone can for people who are hit by disaster...
but when the reporters ran out in the aftermath of Charlie and managed to
find some old retired carny who seemed to have just barely survived Mr.
Toad's Wild Ride as the storm had un-manufactured his double-wide, and this
fellow immediately launched into a tirade against the forecasts that had
called for the storm to have gone ashore slightly north of his last known
position... well, my veins nearly popped.

These people might try reading about the hurricane that hit Connecticut
around '35. The weather forecast predicted a possibility of rain, with
mostly cloudy skies. The storm that hit had been tracked as it passed
Florida, but there was a problem with the "hand off" and the folks in the NE
region had no inkling when that bitch suddenly came roaring ashore. Imagine
the Roy Scheider and the shark chumming scene in Jaws... that's the
reaction.

Whining about a 120 mile "error" in the tracking of a storm that may be
hundreds of miles in diameter has this guy laying pipe for an entirely new
wing in the structure of stupidity. Then again, I never did understand why
the State of Florida even allows mobile homes to be used as domiciles, and
the people who live in those damned things are often the most defiant,
****-you-I-ain't-goin'-to-no-damn-shelter grits ever conceived. They all
have pets and the shelters don't allow 'em, so you know how this story is
going to end.

Nowadays we get weeks of warning, extremely accurate path forecasting, and
two days before the storm is to hit we still have angry people screaming at
terrified Home Depot employees because there's no more plywood anywhere in
the state, let alone in their store.

If the predicted path is a degree off or the storm slows or weakens, then
the forecasters get abused for overreacting or wasting people's time. This
is when people should be emerging from beneath the rubble and applauding in
a show of thanks for all the warnings they've so diligently ignored.

If you're going to build that California house atop a slump-happy cliff, or
especially at the BASE of said mud-slide, at least have the decency to
refrain from ranting blame into some reporter's microphone if you happen to
survive the big storm... Acceptable comments would be along the lines of "I
am a really lucky idiot" or "Don't I just look so stupid?"

Ü