So yet another hurricane is barring down on the Gulf Coast, Harvey. I say this in a sort of casual way, because, this happens practically every year. Every year there is something...if not a full blown hurricane, then a tropical storm, and as such, anyone who lives in hurricane country, aka, anywhere where hurricanes are known to strike on a regular basis, knows the drill.
Here is more of what the reality of living in hurricane country is. People honestly, live for this ish. Remember when you were in school, and there would be a fire drill in the middle of class and you'd have to leave everything and go for a good 15 minutes plus. It's not that you necessarily wanted a fire to burn down the school, I mean, at least, not with your stuff still in there, but it was something exciting and something that interrupted the otherwise hum drum day. That's a hurricane. It's basically an unexpected moment of chaos. You get to get out of work, jury duty, picking the kids up from school...because it's closed, that appointment you didn't want to go to...because everything shuts down. The streets get eerily quiet, everyone shelters in place or has already left. It's dangerous, sure, but you never know what will actually happen as well as this added factor of witnessing the sheer destructive powers of mother nature.
Usually, when a storm is on it's way, you get about a 5-7 day warning that a storm is on the approach. At that point, you get a general track for the storm, but no definite path, so you go back to doing what you're doing. About 3 days on, they can say with like 90% accuracy that it's going to hit X places. At that time, they give you a rating, 1-5. One is the weakest, 5 is, you're going to f--king die! Anything 3 and lower, no one cares. No one is leaving for that. You're most likely going to get some damage to your house or the streets or weak buildings, but generally you're going to survive with your house mostly intact, UNLESS you live in a low coastal area where the waters, even at like a 3ish, can rise to the point where a second floor won't save you. They do get the you're going to die warnings and mandatory evacuations even at low level storms.
Four or five cat storms is where ish starts getting real. These are the storms that can and will rip your house completely off it's moorings or leave nothing but a foundation behind. People also think it's the wind that gets you, but often times, it is the never ending rain that ends up killing people. Five is the one where, you will get a cop coming to your house and literally telling you that after this time, we will not answer 9-1-1 and most likely when we come back, it will be with body bags. If you are more inland, the likelihood of a serious mandatory evacuation is less likely or that people will actually leave, but they do warn you that its in your best interest to evacuate if not for the simple reason that your town/city will have to shut off things like water/electricity/emergency services until the storm passes for safety reasons.
In my lifetime, I've evacuated 5 times. It's been in the middle of the week, it's a shove all the clothes you can fit in a suitcase, take all your personal documents, grab supplies in a mad dash at the store, board up your windows, take anything that can blow away, inside; if you wait until last minute to leave, most stores only have bread and cat food left on the shelves, so you don't want to wait too long. Then you wait in long lines for gas, and then you're in traffic for...well, the last time I left, a normally 4 hour drive to my aunt's in the next city over, took us 14 hours of back to back traffic...and we left early!!!! No matter the storm cat, there will be people who will never leave. In cat 4's even with dire warnings, most do not leave. This often means death for those particularly on the coast line and for idiots that purposefully go out in the storm to sit and watch it, like seriously...
After the storm it's a united chaos. People who wouldn't otherwise help anyone, actually pitch in and help neighbors, offering strangers food/water and places to stay, helping to clean and repair neighborhoods, volunteering with the red cross, working long shifts, etc. Your city rep, mayor, governor, whomever, will get on the news, and start talking about how "we all help one another in times of crisis and looters and such will be dealt with by law enforcement." Trust me, if not law enforcement, regular people often "deal" with looters themselves especially in smaller communities.
When a storm comes, it does not differentiate between rich/poor, black/white. It can hit anyone, anywhere, and people know that, and mostly work at helping to restore the communities as a whole and if a community is not getting help, someone pops on TV and screams or cries, we need help, and everyone wanting to be on social media and the news, swarms the place to offer their help ESPECIALLY local politicians. Again, they love this ish. In all my years, I've only ever actually feared one hurricane, and it was the one that did the most damage, but mostly you just kind of enjoy a few days off, clean up, help people, get bored, and then go back to work and get back to life as regularly scheduled.
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