To Leave or Not To Leave

Erin has killed three people already. It looks a lot like the hurricane season is underway with a bang. Erin is causing a lot of rain and flooding as it makes her way up Texas to eventually die out as rain in remote areas. No one took this storm very seriously. But now, Dean is rumbling through as a category 4 storm, decimating the Caribbean and heading, they predict, toward Brownsville, Texas. Or it could turn north and head on to Louisiana and those parts.

The governor of Louisiana has issued a preliminary state of emergency just in case and several Parishes are holding evacuation drills. Some are thinking of the lousy year of 2005 culminating with not one but two deadly storms that annihilated parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. Who can forget Katrina? The levies and barriers have not been repaired yet to the level they were during the last major storm and now another could quite possibly be a repeat, a horrible reenactment of before. Let's hope it isn't so.

Some places however, don't learn as easily as others. Reports are that there are some local cities and parishes that haven't gotten onto the emergency preparedness wagon and are once again taking a wait and see attitude. For a population who only partially returned to live, you might assume that all of Louisiana and Mississippi would be on the edge of the bus seats anticipating leaving. Not so. FEMA is ready. After all, they still have all those unused trailers from the last fiasco. Buses are lined up. Bags are packed. There are only 13 out of 23 hospitals operating this year in New Orleans and some of the police districts are still operating out of temporary mobile buildings. Those who choose to stay behind will once again be on roof tops waiting for rescue which may or may not be available this time.

Given the errors in hurricane tracking, like any weather predictions, plenty could change from hour to hour. This storm could easily change directions. I hope not. I hope it fizzles out at landfall. But just in case, if I lived anywhere along the gulf coast, I'd be making vacation plans to say, North Dakota for the duration. The season is still young. The predictions are for a busy season based on the warming of the climates, ocean current, history, etc. Anything is possible.

I'd like to go north anyway for the summer,and I surely wouldn't wait and see. When we get tornadoes, we have minutes to evacuate. Hurricanes are the most anticipated storms there are. Get out of Dodge now and send postcards to those who don't.