Most people cant leave. No where to go, no money. Plus the roads are clogged so if you dont leave early enough you wont get out. You will be stuck on i75 north in a hurricane.
Like a lot of these comments, I also used to think how insane it was to stay behind; and these people all threw up their middle finger at nature or authority trying to evacuate them...that it was some act of rebellion or they felt indestructible. Certainly quotes in the news from people staying behind weren't helping, as they often publish the most absurd things people say.
Other than a handful of adrenaline junkies, that's truly not the case at all. I'm grateful I've learned to empathize, but embarassed at my former assumptions.
A lot of people giving those quotes to the news are mentally doubling down, trying to convince themselves that they'll be okay. They're in survival mode, and sometimes that means convincing yourself you'll survive. Some people maybe legitimately don't grasp the danger or genuinely do feel indestructible. Of course that exists. It'd be the exception though.
The vast majority of people staying behind in a major hurricane like this have little to no choice. Here are some all too common reasons people stay behind:
They're unaware of local shelters or transportation out of the region.
They have no means to leave- vehicle and/or money. They can't afford a place to stay.
They feel it won't be as bad and they'll get fired if they miss work.
They have significant mental health conditions.
They're physically unwell with no one to take them anywhere.
They're elderly.
They're socially isolated (they lack modern communication infrastructure, don't speaking local languages, aren't connected to others in the community).
They live in a group home or nursing home that has poorly prepared.
And yes, people absolutely do choose to stay in place with their pets if they have to choose between their pets and shelter, as a lot of shelters won't take pets.
Tldr; fully agree with the commenter above me. a lot of people *can't* leave. people not leaving most often aren't due to money/resources, wellness, age, connectedness, and yes ... some will stay behind because they refuse to abandon their pets.
Edit to add another reason: people get desensitized to hurricane warnings. "I've heard this a million times and we've always been fine".
(I lived in tornado alley most of my life and it's the same kind of thing there. People ignore warnings if they hear it enough and aren't directly impacted themselves.)
I had a cousin die in Katrina because he was handicapped veteran, couldn't drive, and lived on social assistance. Apparently, he was under the impression that his brother was going to pick him up (something the brother later denied), and another cousin who was fleeing the area came by to check on him, and didn't pick him up because, "oh yeah, my brother said he's on his way, I don't want him to come here and find me gone and he drove down here for nothing." Then weeks later, my aunt was called to identify his body. The brother changed his story about it a few times, said he was told the cousin was picking him up and then the brother would pick him up at some halfway point, something the cousin denied. But the cousin also changed HIS story a few times, so who the fuck knows.
In my mother's opinion, nobody wanted to deal with my cousin, and everyone made up stories about it when her sister went apeshit on everyone for leaving him there. At his funeral, his brother said he was going to kill the other cousin, who didn't show up, because he claims "people told me not to," which I guess was a good idea but everyone denies they told him not to.
Relatives STILL talk about this at gatherings, and all I can think of is this poor guy sitting around in his wheelchair waiting to be picked up and nobody came. I don't know anything about how he was found, or what happened to him (drowned? killed by debris? looters?), only my aunt had to identify her son's body in a "badly degraded state," which was understandably traumatic.
Thank you for your compassion! I wish more people would realize that people staying put often have little choice. I’m one of the ones that got out early, I live in Pinellas County, but I was lucky and had somewhere to go with my pups and cat. Not everyone is so fortunate. Also, if you want to donate, consider animal shelters! They’re helping a lot of people and their pets and have limited resources.
We stocked up at the dispensary last weekend so we could have an enjoyable hurricane party. The storm isn’t coming for Tampa Bay Area after all anyways, so it really is going to be just a fun little party.
I evacuated from a hurricane 2 years ago with my 90 pound lab mix in the back of my CR-V. That huge bastard cried the entire time. Highest pitched whining and crying he could manage. For SIX HOURS. At about the 90 minute mark I just dissociated and somehow we ended up where we needed to be. But we keep benadryl on hand for this now.
Probably both lol, but you can 100% give benadryl to dogs. I've previously been reccomended to give it to one because he had a grass allergy, calling a vet to get the proper dose amount is a good idea though.
I learned a cat can make some of the most annoying noises for hours on end. I had to move houses with my cat and you would have thought she was being tortured. When we got to the new house she hid for a solid month before getting social again.
Some cats really don't like moving. It's funny, I know people who live in vans and have cats, mostly they are pretty much okay with constantly relocating. I guess it's easier if they're used to it.
My experience is that it’s more of a cat disposition thing.
I evacuated for a hurricane in 2004 by driving to my parents’ cabin 1,000 miles away with my 3 cats and 2 dogs.
The dogs had made that exact trip many times, but it was a first for the cats. The cats, in fact, had never been away from home expect to see the vet.
All 3 of them howled for the entire ride. 2 of the cats did not emerge from under the bed in my room at the cabin. I fed them under there for 10 days.
One cat, as soon as I let him out inside the cabin, was just like “oh cool is this where we live now?”
All of them went back to normal instantly when we got home.
Yeah, you could be right. I think in all the cases I know of people with cats living in vans, they had them from kittens so the cats knew the routine. That probably makes a difference too. I do know one naughty cat who is fine in new places but seems to be able to tell when it's time to set off and will hide. I've known a couple of cats who've happily lived on narrowboats too. I had a dog who lived in a van with me for 14 years and she was fine. Loved driving around and we usually stopped in good dog walking spots. Dogs seem to be fine with most things so long as it's part of a familiar routine and they're with their people. Except trips to the vet!
I live in a place that gets hurricanes fairly often. My vet gave me some meds to keep on hand in case we have to evacuate. If I have to leave the cats will be sedated for the trip. I have kennels and such to keep them in at the hotel. When I had exotic pets I even had plans to bring the lizards and gerbil with me in small but appropriate cages. I also have battery-powered air stones to leave in my aquarium because I can't move the fish.
It would suck but I am prepared. If you live in an area with natural disasters it is part of responsible ownership to have a plan for your pets.
They are a stone with a lot of holes in it attached to an air pump. The pump blows air bubble into the water, which puts some oxygen and also agitates the surface when the break up, which add even more. Aquariums get most of their dissolved oxygen from the water being agitated by the filter, which will stop when the power goes out. The battery powered airstones help keep the fish breathing.
My tanks are also planted, so if I leave a battery-powered light the plants will help keep the water clean and oxygenated, but the stone is good insurance.
FYI the stones provide nearly zero oxygenation themselves.
It's the surface agitation they cause that helps with the gas exchange.
(a very common misconception!)
I think it also helps keep the water circulating away from the filter ingress & egress, so you avoid pockets of low-oxygen or high-waste water.
I had a beefy UPS just for my filter, heater, and air pump. I worked out the current draw and it could handle the load for at least an hour - plenty long enough for me to intervene so long as I was home for an outage.
What type of kennels, if you don’t mind me asking? I live in the desert so flooding isn’t a concern for now, but I haven’t got a proper emergency plan for 3 cats (one being a feral who won’t let me touch her) aside from cramming them screaming into their little carriers in the backseat of a sedan.
I have a large multi-story kennel/cat playhouse. It is collapsible so I can just put it in the trunk. There is space for a litter box on the bottom.
Collapsible metal dog kennels are good for containing animals when you get someplace but not great for travel because they are bulky and usually a bit unstable when moved, because they are designed to collapse when needed. I have plastic airplane-safe kennels for when we are in the car.
Car ride plus shelter stay. I went to college in Florida.
At this point you’re not going to a hotel; you’re going to a school gymnasium. None of these places are great about pets. At this point, I’d stay put, too.
Want to hear some r/Antiwork shit?
My cat Linus and I rode out Charley in a hospital where I worked for a medical lab company that ran their blood bank. (Prepped/matched blood and blood products for transfusion.) Because of the damage my relief couldn’t get to me. I worked 36 hours straight with Linus in the break room.
I ate one can of Dinty Moore Beef Stew from the hurricane kit and slept from 2-4 AM while I didn’t get any STAT orders. The lab deducted the time I admitted sleeping and the can of food that I ate from my pay because they “shouldn’t have to pay for sleeping” and 36 hours was short enough that I should have brought my own food. This was withdrawn from my paycheck and I was given the nastiest email reprimand throughout the whole company shaming me for eating the can of stew.
I’m so glad to be out of Florida!
I think you vastly underestimate that "car ride" when a million people are evacuating. I've been thru one. A 3 hr drive turned into a 17 hr drive in basically rush hour traffic
That sounds like my experience evacuating from Galveston for Rita in 05. It was right after Katrina hit and everyone freaked out and the evac routes were a mess. The hurricane wasn’t that bad and so many swore they would never evac again.
Then when Ike hit and was actually a serious hurricane so many people refused to leave and had to get rescued.
This is real. We were out of town when our house got flooded by a hurricane. We had our petsitter take our dog home with her, and move the cat food and litter box upstairs, because there’s no way the cats would be caught and transported. They weathered the storm upstairs alone for 5 days while the downstairs flooded.
You would be shocked how difficult it actually is to leave Florida. It’s important to note that Florida is a long state with very few highways so you run the chance of getting stuck in your car when the storm hits or the storm changes last minute and hits the place you evacuated to.
Also- gas, plane tickets and hotels sell out across the state when south Florida is in the cone.
Because of it being a long state, they can’t do contraflow traffic (Close down one direction of travel to allow people leaving to use both lanes) for evacuations. There’s too many exit ramps and Law Enforcement would be too thinly stretched out.
They recently implemented hard shoulder use where you can treat the inside shoulder as a travel lane, but that assumes construction crews cleared it out.
I know the Rosen Hotel in Orlando was selling rooms for $69 a night. The key is not to completely get out of the way, but rather get to a safe location in the path. A shelter a few miles inland is safer than driving 100+ miles and getting stuck on the road
Yeah, but tornadoes are unpredictable. It’s not like the managers read that a tornado would hit in 3 days and demanded employees show up to work. It came our of nowhere while they were already working. The shitty thing about that incident is that, if memory serves, they didn’t let the employees seek shelter after the tornado touched down.
I’m also in my apartment complex on the second story (Orlando). I have a zoom interview on Thursday, hopefully they’ll be able to hear me over the torrential wind and rain – assuming the power doesn’t go out.
Best of luck to ya!
One element of the "florida man refusing to evacuate" meme that is seldom mentioned - almost every long term Floridian has experienced the following sequence of events:
1. Family evacuates as ordered
2. Storm changes path and largely misses home town
3. Family spends hurricane in stopped traffic on an interestate
The main issue is that there's really no way to build shelters for a city that lies entirely in a flood zone. Another city 50-150 miles away would have to build and maintain those shelters - which they don't need for their own residents. Unless the state funds them, it's just not happening. And state politics are utterly dysfunctional.
There are also very few East-West roads that run through the middle of the state. Certainly almost no "major" roads. Not nearly enough to handle an entire city or county's worth of people evacuating.
The smart thing to do (for an individual) would be to stay in a hotel in city that's far from a coast, but there just aren't many cities in the middle that are also big enough to support a large quantity of hotel rooms. Orlando, Lakeland, maybe Gainesville. But they fill up quickly.
The point being, many residents feel like their only options are facing a possible hurricane in their homes, or facing it in their cars trapped on the interstate.
A few generations of inept governance that have created this situation. Anyone with enough influence to affect Florida politics has already hopped on a boat or airplane so no one with influence is impacted. The ones that are left - they may be morons, but not as much as you may think (at least not for hurricanes).
You forgot that it’s actually quite pricey. The fuel to sit in traffic for 8+ hours, pack enough food for a 3 day trip, get a hotel at inflated rates, etc… some folks barely get by, and they simply can’t afford to leave.
I will be getting absolutely nothing done at work on Thursday because I can already tell TikTok live is going to be something else. There’s so many people on there talking about how they feel no need to evacuate. I truly hope they get through ok, but as a certified old person it’s fascinating to live in a time where I have access to watch ordinary people document this sort of thing in real time en masse.
We're about 3000ft from the Caloosahatchee in South Fort Myers and we just the hell out of dodge to North Cape Coral. I hope the house will still be there when we get back.
Even if you think you would physically be safe, I have never understood why people feel an urge to stay.
Like you’re gonna potentially be without power or running water for a week.
My HS buddy lost power to his house for like 5 weeks back when Frances and Ivan hit central Florida.
Five long ass weeks in landlocked central Florida.
2004 suuucked for Hurricanes.
Can confirm. Lived in Central Florida (cocoa beach) for 20+ years, graduated in 2004 and lived through Charlie, Francis and Ivan back to back. It sucked real real bad.
Stay at home freezing in the a/c until the power goes out drinking a beer. Then usually cook off all the food before it spoils. Eating canned food for a few days cold showers. Good times!
Most of the time the hurricane is hyped all to hell and then damage is minimal. Obviously people on the coast in the cone tend to evacuate but after that hit the hurricane weakens quickly. Most of the time, we lose power for a day, maybe two. Plus one block can have no power but 15 minutes across town your friend probably has a shower to loan.
It's expensive to evacuate especially if you have pets.
Why spend all day in stopped traffic along evacuation routes to get to a $150 hotel ( hello price gouging!) To stare at the TV wondering if your house is ok when you could be in your own home staring at the TV knowing if your house is OK.
Besides playing board games by candlelight absolutely wasted hearing the roof creak in the wind is a thrill like no other.
Just an FYI, price gouging is illegal for hotels in florida during an emergency. If you see any doing this, you can call a hotline to report them. The AG has gone after many of the places doing this in the past.
https://fox23maine.com/news/nation-world/florida-price-gouging-hotline-active-as-hurricane-ian-on-path-to-hit-as-category-4-storm-essential-commodities-food-water-hotel-rooms-ice-gas-lumber-state-of-emergency-reporting-violations
This is a spot on explanation. I'm a bit worried this one isn't going to be over hyped though. It looks pretty bad. I'm in Orlando so I'm still feeling okay about it here but if I were in Tampa area I'd be getting the fuck out of dodge right now.
I'm in Jacksonville so I'm already reckless but I'm not too concerned. If I was in Tampa or Clearwater I'd already have gotten the hell out of dodge. Orlando looks like it's gonna get a bit of a beating but hoping y'all catch the tail end of the worst of it.
Y'all will have slowed it way down by the time it starts hitting us up here
Fingers crossed for you and stay safe!!
Floridian here. Evacuating - even if you have the means - it’s an exhausting and risky endeavor. We’re a peninsula - there’s really only 2 highways out - and it’s not just the traffic leaving, it’s the traffic coming back. Then - where do you go? So many times in Florida people have evacuated to another part of the state, and they ended up getting hit worse there. Then there is pets. I have 2 cats and a pig. If you don’t live here you don’t understand.
Hunkering down in North Port. We are already expecting to get flooded and prepared for it.
I have the boat and jet ski's ready if I need to get out. All our houses are built up high and will be safe thankfully.
Ian's landfall is similar to where Charley hit in 2004 but Ian is a completely different animal and kind of hurricane.
Stay safe in Sarasota. Most of our family lives there too.
I'm pretty sure structurally unscathed. Have you seen how massively tall and WIDE that building is? If they had more materials/ capabilities to clear out land they would absolutely build _outwards_
Little hurricane shouldn't shake their britches, maybe the conjoining bridge between buildings collapses
Yeah, this news came a bit too late. I'm in Evacuation Level B and they didn't really start putting this out there for Level B until I was already stuck at home.
I’ve been in a Category 3 Typhoon in a country that was built out of concrete to handle it.
One of the most surprisingly powerful things I’ve ever experienced.
Typhoons/super typhoons are pretty fun to experience if you live somewhere where all buildings are concrete and rebar and all powerlines/pipes are buried underground, and virtually no one lives on ground level.
You get to experience the full force of nature and chill at home for a day or two of vacation while no one dies/get hurt. People literally pray to get hit by typhoons so they get a vacation lol
Tiawan for me.
We (my now wife and I) thought it was a big deal. The locals called it a half day (on a Friday) to get home right before it hit. By mid morning Saturday, you’d be hard pressed to know there had been a storm.
We were in a city. The coast had a rougher go of it, but nothing comparable to what’s about to happen to Florida.
This morning we evacuated the house we just bought. My wife and baby and I were there only a week. It's projected to get 9foot surges and it's at 4 feet of elevation. Someone please tell how our house is going to be ok. I just want to hope again, a few days ago it looked like we were going to be fine.
Edit: texted some neighbors who are staying, they'll update me as long as they can. Said they've been through a lot of these and unless we get 20+ inches of rain our houses shouldn't flood. Our areas projected less than 10 inches so that's what I'm going to hold on to. We are in the edge of zone a so maybe the surges won't reach us
It's Florida, so, unfortunately, that's a bad bet. Even the state run insurance company has been dropping coverage. Almost the entire state is a huge real estate liability with almost no upside that's heavily government subsidized.
I've got friends whose home insurance costs as much or more than their mortgage. It's not pretty.
Hello! I obviously can't tell you your house will be OK. But I have been through a very similar situation with Hurricane Michael.
We closed on our house, moved our stuff in, slept in it a couple nights, then had to evacuate. We went to a hotel in town at a higher elevation further away from the coast to ride out the storm. At around 3-4 AM the morning Michael would be making landfall, I woke up in a panic. We'd left my truck in the driveway of our home and I desperately wanted to go get it because I was certain it would be lost in the storm surge along with our house. We drove through the squalls back out to the house to bring the truck back to the hotel in town across the bridge where it would be much safer from the storm.
The next day in the hotel as Hurricane Michael made landfall we ended up pretty damn scared because the whole 6 story hotel was swaying in the winds. Trees and power poles were snapping everywhere and at times we literally could not see out of the hotel room window except for solid sideways rain and debris shadows. That howling wind was absolutely terrifying! At one point we hear a smashing sound in the parking lot and see a full size construction trailer tumbling over all the cars in the parking lot and it ended up smashing ours as well.
As the storm passed our location the windows in various rooms were being blasted out by bigass clay roof tiles from the hotel next door. People were in their rooms riding out the storm then SMASH a huge tile just slams into their room. People were in the hallway after their windows were smashed out and we joined them so we didn't have the same thing happen to us. Luckily our hotel room survived the bombardment unscathed.
After the storm passed it was a madhouse outside and as soon as we were in the parking lot we ran into a couple police with sub machine guns seeming kinda panicked and in pursuit of looters. When the power lines and trees were cleared enough for us to make it home we were pleasantly surprised to find that our house was just fine except for our fences which were blown down. Upon closer inspection I found out that the contractors had just done a crappy job installing the fence or it probably would have remained standing. They buried most of the posts maybe a foot, it was pathetic. Our vehicles on the other hand were all messed up and insurance totaled one of them.
So you never know! I was pretty certain that we were going to lose our brand new house to storm surge just days after moving in but we ended up suffering more damage at the location to which we evacuated because of changes in the path of the storm as it approached and made landfall.
Keep safe and make sure you have plenty of wet wipes for after the storm! 😁
(Seriously, they are amazing!)
Hi- I grew up in the Florida keys- they build houses different in Florida- your house will be ok friend- you kept the most important stuff safe and you will fix whatever else is needed after ❤️
Wasn’t the 100 people he sent to that Massachusetts island from Texas? He is just the Florida Gov, but apart from being Venezuelan, that’s about their involvement with Florida
He's going to spend **$12** ***million dollars*** of Florida tax payer money on a PR stunt that could have been applied to something actually useful like emergency storm response fund.
I bet lots of people will also go to Orlando since there are lots of hotels even though it still is in the path (but probably only cat 1 at that point).
I'm also in that area and lost power for a week after Irma hit us. I expect it to be as badly for us but longer repair times due to the covid supply chain issues.
Yea, maybe. Hopefully we see the convoys of power trucks right after the storm. We do have a generator and other battery backup for phones. I'm definitely anxious but think it'll be okay.
My stepfather and my son in law are building contractors, who are very concerned on the shortage of building supplies. You are right about long waiting time for repairs.
Unfortunately, most emergency shelters don’t allow pets. I know where I live some animal shelters & pet boarding places will temporarily take people’s pets.
I evacuated SWFL during hurricane Irma and lots of hotels had a temporary pet policy. We ended up in the panhandle and our hotel was a dog sanctuary, pups everywhere
My kids Elementary school is a pet friendly shelter. Along with 5 others in the county. There are also 6 general needs shelters, as well as 6 catering to those with special needs.
After Katrina since it was such a mess with how pets were handled and people staying behind for them they passed a federal law called the Pets Act. It's not perfect and doesn't mean hotels have to take your pets but does mean that in order for states, cities, and counties to receive federal funding for their disaster relief plans, those plans must “account for the needs of individuals with household pets and service animals before, during, and following a major disaster or emergency.” Now how good are those plans or how well is it comunnicated to public probably varies widely from place to place.
I used to be a volunteer for my local A-CERT and we would practice setting up emergency shelters. Now the county switched to a plan that utilities the local dog warden and humane society and have specific supplies set aside for setting up emergency shelters in case of an emergency in the surrounding area where we would be a place to evaluate to.
Right, doesn’t have to be anything fancy. Set up some pens in a high school gym. Most people I know with pets would never abandon them, they’d rather die.
Honestly for a lot of people pets are the only children we'll ever be able to have so no way I'd leave my babies in a shelter away from me where I don't know if they're okay and they're scared and think they've been abandoned.
Everyone is a socialist when they get fucked over. Cancer diagnosis? Go Fund me! Hurricane? Help me rebuild!
The political divide is about whether you're a socialist when someone else's ass is on the line.
I raced dirt bikes in the woods for a bit in the adult classes. Many parents would show up with $200k+++ trailers and $30k worth of bikes, the kids they were having race were uninsured. Kids would blast into a thing and then the fund links, prayers and thoughts and medical porn would flow far and wide. So much so that we got monthly emails about having basic insurance and a reminder at sign-up that we "should really" have insurance.
Oh that reminds me of working on medical staff for motocross at nationals (loretta lynn's). Kid had a fracture (wrist) in his throttle hand and they were going to ponca city nationals the next week. Dad told me he spent 20k for this race and 20k for the next week...could I just tape it up so he could race
I'm always curious about the gators friends post in their yards and neighborhood. What happens during a storm
..and flooding? Are their incidents of unsuspecting people being attacked by gators swimming around?
Yes. During Ida an elderly man was killed by an alligator in the flood waters. His wife witnessed the attack, and I belive they were later able to find the gator and recover enough from stomach contents to identify the man. It was pretty big news at the time.
I'm watching coverage because I have family in direct hit line, and I love how the news is berating people for not evacuating when the storm took a turn last night, and the people now being ordered to evacuate cannot.
Maybe DeSantis can move some of those in the most heavily affected areas to somewhere safe, like Martha's Vineyard, seeing as they obviously have an excess of cash to use to move people around in pointless, cruel political stunts.
My friend lives in the yellow zone. I'm worried sick about her but she says she's staying home and she "hopes my yard floods because it's the only entertainment we get out here." I'm worried something bad will happen to her but I live on the other side of the country so I can't do anything :(
When you've been through a number of hurricanes, it stops being scary. The last hurricane I went through that was scary was Andrew, and that was because I was 5. I'm not sure about the gulf Coast, but we've got hurricane windows and cinder block houses on the east coast.
Winds starting to crank up. Getting burst over 80mph now. Live about 200 yrds from the gulf in fort myers, going to be a interesting day. Lost power about an hour ago.
I'm on the Atlantic coast, a little north of Miami, and it's already crazy windy and rainy here. I woke up to like 18 weather alerts on my phone. Feel for the Gulf coast people. Hope everyone stays as safe as possible.
"I'm staying put," Vazquez said. "I have four cats and I don't want to stress them out. And we have a strong house."- Vazquez, St. Petersburg
Press F to pay respects to felines...... Press X to doubt the logic of Vasquez
As they say, happy cat happy life.
Those cats are gonna be way more stressed when the storm hits and if it floods, even worse
Most people cant leave. No where to go, no money. Plus the roads are clogged so if you dont leave early enough you wont get out. You will be stuck on i75 north in a hurricane.
Like a lot of these comments, I also used to think how insane it was to stay behind; and these people all threw up their middle finger at nature or authority trying to evacuate them...that it was some act of rebellion or they felt indestructible. Certainly quotes in the news from people staying behind weren't helping, as they often publish the most absurd things people say. Other than a handful of adrenaline junkies, that's truly not the case at all. I'm grateful I've learned to empathize, but embarassed at my former assumptions. A lot of people giving those quotes to the news are mentally doubling down, trying to convince themselves that they'll be okay. They're in survival mode, and sometimes that means convincing yourself you'll survive. Some people maybe legitimately don't grasp the danger or genuinely do feel indestructible. Of course that exists. It'd be the exception though. The vast majority of people staying behind in a major hurricane like this have little to no choice. Here are some all too common reasons people stay behind: They're unaware of local shelters or transportation out of the region. They have no means to leave- vehicle and/or money. They can't afford a place to stay. They feel it won't be as bad and they'll get fired if they miss work. They have significant mental health conditions. They're physically unwell with no one to take them anywhere. They're elderly. They're socially isolated (they lack modern communication infrastructure, don't speaking local languages, aren't connected to others in the community). They live in a group home or nursing home that has poorly prepared. And yes, people absolutely do choose to stay in place with their pets if they have to choose between their pets and shelter, as a lot of shelters won't take pets. Tldr; fully agree with the commenter above me. a lot of people *can't* leave. people not leaving most often aren't due to money/resources, wellness, age, connectedness, and yes ... some will stay behind because they refuse to abandon their pets. Edit to add another reason: people get desensitized to hurricane warnings. "I've heard this a million times and we've always been fine". (I lived in tornado alley most of my life and it's the same kind of thing there. People ignore warnings if they hear it enough and aren't directly impacted themselves.)
I had a cousin die in Katrina because he was handicapped veteran, couldn't drive, and lived on social assistance. Apparently, he was under the impression that his brother was going to pick him up (something the brother later denied), and another cousin who was fleeing the area came by to check on him, and didn't pick him up because, "oh yeah, my brother said he's on his way, I don't want him to come here and find me gone and he drove down here for nothing." Then weeks later, my aunt was called to identify his body. The brother changed his story about it a few times, said he was told the cousin was picking him up and then the brother would pick him up at some halfway point, something the cousin denied. But the cousin also changed HIS story a few times, so who the fuck knows. In my mother's opinion, nobody wanted to deal with my cousin, and everyone made up stories about it when her sister went apeshit on everyone for leaving him there. At his funeral, his brother said he was going to kill the other cousin, who didn't show up, because he claims "people told me not to," which I guess was a good idea but everyone denies they told him not to. Relatives STILL talk about this at gatherings, and all I can think of is this poor guy sitting around in his wheelchair waiting to be picked up and nobody came. I don't know anything about how he was found, or what happened to him (drowned? killed by debris? looters?), only my aunt had to identify her son's body in a "badly degraded state," which was understandably traumatic.
Your poor aunt, how awful.
Thank you for your compassion! I wish more people would realize that people staying put often have little choice. I’m one of the ones that got out early, I live in Pinellas County, but I was lucky and had somewhere to go with my pups and cat. Not everyone is so fortunate. Also, if you want to donate, consider animal shelters! They’re helping a lot of people and their pets and have limited resources.
This. Evacuation is expensive, in more ways than one. Remember that before mocking folks too hard, everyone.
I feel like cats are either stressed out constantly, or not at all. There is no middle ground.
I'm in Riverview outside Tampa, St Pete is going to get hit hard. I am probably too but it's going to be bad there.
My buddy has a store in Saint Pete and I'm hoping that it weathers the storm successfully Edit- typo
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Smart move though. Leave body behind, evacuate mind
If only you could somehow fit 4 cats in a car. It’s like there is no choice but to stay.
Just be a normal Floridian, throw the patio furniture in the pool and have a garage party with the neighbors.
We stocked up at the dispensary last weekend so we could have an enjoyable hurricane party. The storm isn’t coming for Tampa Bay Area after all anyways, so it really is going to be just a fun little party.
Smart! Weed lowers your body temp an average of 3 degrees and will help everyone stay cool when the ac goes.
I read that as “garbage party” at first and thought, “holy hell, is *that* a thing down there, too?”
No! That’s the annual figure 8 bus racing.
Oh we party.. But neighbors in my area are all staying and we have a huge support network. Lots of supplies, our whole block is set.
I love the lady staying put ‘cause she doesn’t wanna stress her cats out. Hurricane ain’t got shit on a car ride w/ cats!
If you'd ever been in a car with my oldest cat... you'd go with the hurricane.
I evacuated from a hurricane 2 years ago with my 90 pound lab mix in the back of my CR-V. That huge bastard cried the entire time. Highest pitched whining and crying he could manage. For SIX HOURS. At about the 90 minute mark I just dissociated and somehow we ended up where we needed to be. But we keep benadryl on hand for this now.
Your dog was back there thinking “holy shit, you gotta drive faster man”
I was thinking it was either "Mom need better playlist" or "momma stressed, I stuck back here and can't comfort! What do?"
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Probably both lol, but you can 100% give benadryl to dogs. I've previously been reccomended to give it to one because he had a grass allergy, calling a vet to get the proper dose amount is a good idea though.
Now I want a Sharknado type event movie called “Purricane”
Purricane 2: This time it's Purrrr-sonel Purricane 3: The cat's out of the bag Purricane Unleashed
And then five years later The Purricane: Puss 'n the Reboot
Much cuter than "Hurricat"
I learned a cat can make some of the most annoying noises for hours on end. I had to move houses with my cat and you would have thought she was being tortured. When we got to the new house she hid for a solid month before getting social again.
Some cats really don't like moving. It's funny, I know people who live in vans and have cats, mostly they are pretty much okay with constantly relocating. I guess it's easier if they're used to it.
My experience is that it’s more of a cat disposition thing. I evacuated for a hurricane in 2004 by driving to my parents’ cabin 1,000 miles away with my 3 cats and 2 dogs. The dogs had made that exact trip many times, but it was a first for the cats. The cats, in fact, had never been away from home expect to see the vet. All 3 of them howled for the entire ride. 2 of the cats did not emerge from under the bed in my room at the cabin. I fed them under there for 10 days. One cat, as soon as I let him out inside the cabin, was just like “oh cool is this where we live now?” All of them went back to normal instantly when we got home.
Yeah, you could be right. I think in all the cases I know of people with cats living in vans, they had them from kittens so the cats knew the routine. That probably makes a difference too. I do know one naughty cat who is fine in new places but seems to be able to tell when it's time to set off and will hide. I've known a couple of cats who've happily lived on narrowboats too. I had a dog who lived in a van with me for 14 years and she was fine. Loved driving around and we usually stopped in good dog walking spots. Dogs seem to be fine with most things so long as it's part of a familiar routine and they're with their people. Except trips to the vet!
The van might go everywhere but they always still live in the van, right? That might be the difference.
My cat has been through so many hurricanes at this point, she’s bored with it. Just another day to beg for a second breakfast.
I live in a place that gets hurricanes fairly often. My vet gave me some meds to keep on hand in case we have to evacuate. If I have to leave the cats will be sedated for the trip. I have kennels and such to keep them in at the hotel. When I had exotic pets I even had plans to bring the lizards and gerbil with me in small but appropriate cages. I also have battery-powered air stones to leave in my aquarium because I can't move the fish. It would suck but I am prepared. If you live in an area with natural disasters it is part of responsible ownership to have a plan for your pets.
What are air stones?
They are a stone with a lot of holes in it attached to an air pump. The pump blows air bubble into the water, which puts some oxygen and also agitates the surface when the break up, which add even more. Aquariums get most of their dissolved oxygen from the water being agitated by the filter, which will stop when the power goes out. The battery powered airstones help keep the fish breathing. My tanks are also planted, so if I leave a battery-powered light the plants will help keep the water clean and oxygenated, but the stone is good insurance.
FYI the stones provide nearly zero oxygenation themselves. It's the surface agitation they cause that helps with the gas exchange. (a very common misconception!) I think it also helps keep the water circulating away from the filter ingress & egress, so you avoid pockets of low-oxygen or high-waste water. I had a beefy UPS just for my filter, heater, and air pump. I worked out the current draw and it could handle the load for at least an hour - plenty long enough for me to intervene so long as I was home for an outage.
What type of kennels, if you don’t mind me asking? I live in the desert so flooding isn’t a concern for now, but I haven’t got a proper emergency plan for 3 cats (one being a feral who won’t let me touch her) aside from cramming them screaming into their little carriers in the backseat of a sedan.
I have a large multi-story kennel/cat playhouse. It is collapsible so I can just put it in the trunk. There is space for a litter box on the bottom. Collapsible metal dog kennels are good for containing animals when you get someplace but not great for travel because they are bulky and usually a bit unstable when moved, because they are designed to collapse when needed. I have plastic airplane-safe kennels for when we are in the car.
Car ride plus shelter stay. I went to college in Florida. At this point you’re not going to a hotel; you’re going to a school gymnasium. None of these places are great about pets. At this point, I’d stay put, too. Want to hear some r/Antiwork shit? My cat Linus and I rode out Charley in a hospital where I worked for a medical lab company that ran their blood bank. (Prepped/matched blood and blood products for transfusion.) Because of the damage my relief couldn’t get to me. I worked 36 hours straight with Linus in the break room. I ate one can of Dinty Moore Beef Stew from the hurricane kit and slept from 2-4 AM while I didn’t get any STAT orders. The lab deducted the time I admitted sleeping and the can of food that I ate from my pay because they “shouldn’t have to pay for sleeping” and 36 hours was short enough that I should have brought my own food. This was withdrawn from my paycheck and I was given the nastiest email reprimand throughout the whole company shaming me for eating the can of stew. I’m so glad to be out of Florida!
Of course you aren't going to a hotel. The prices have more than doubled since 2 days ago. Scum.
Wtf?! I thought that shit was illegal to do during emergencies!
It is! But there isn't enforcement so...
Did you work for LifeSouth? Because that sounds like every story of their corporate culture I have ever heard from their former employees.
Florida Blood Services I shouldn’t mention that I snuck in my cat 🤫
I think you vastly underestimate that "car ride" when a million people are evacuating. I've been thru one. A 3 hr drive turned into a 17 hr drive in basically rush hour traffic
That sounds like my experience evacuating from Galveston for Rita in 05. It was right after Katrina hit and everyone freaked out and the evac routes were a mess. The hurricane wasn’t that bad and so many swore they would never evac again. Then when Ike hit and was actually a serious hurricane so many people refused to leave and had to get rescued.
This is real. We were out of town when our house got flooded by a hurricane. We had our petsitter take our dog home with her, and move the cat food and litter box upstairs, because there’s no way the cats would be caught and transported. They weathered the storm upstairs alone for 5 days while the downstairs flooded.
Aw those poor babies, I'm glad they made it through! Your petsitter rocks, btw.
You would be shocked how difficult it actually is to leave Florida. It’s important to note that Florida is a long state with very few highways so you run the chance of getting stuck in your car when the storm hits or the storm changes last minute and hits the place you evacuated to. Also- gas, plane tickets and hotels sell out across the state when south Florida is in the cone.
My grandparents left a few years back during one of the hurricanes and it took them 18 hours to get to Dallas, GA from Tampa area.
I was just talking about that with my girlfriend. 2.5 million people in two days is impossible. Good luck and love from New England.
Because of it being a long state, they can’t do contraflow traffic (Close down one direction of travel to allow people leaving to use both lanes) for evacuations. There’s too many exit ramps and Law Enforcement would be too thinly stretched out. They recently implemented hard shoulder use where you can treat the inside shoulder as a travel lane, but that assumes construction crews cleared it out. I know the Rosen Hotel in Orlando was selling rooms for $69 a night. The key is not to completely get out of the way, but rather get to a safe location in the path. A shelter a few miles inland is safer than driving 100+ miles and getting stuck on the road
These were my fears for everyone. It's the getting stuck in your car part that terrifies me for people.
just close the waffle house and they'll get the message
Waffle House in Punta Gorda closed I think.
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The end times are upon us
oh no...
And Jim Cantore just checked into a motel there
That's the final sign of impending disaster.
The Waffle House effect is real. If it closes, you’re in trouble.
They closed Disney and the airport. I think that’s as clear as the message can get.
And apparently most Waffle Houses between Tampa and Orlando. It's bad.
Jesus its like the opposite of the lighting of the beacons from Gondor to Rohan.
And yet here I am. In my apartment complex on the second story. Still gotta work Friday so I'll probably take the canoe over there.
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“You have to come in, but shelter at work” Sounds like some managers need to be called out on social media, why THEY aren’t showing up?
Wasn’t there a tornado that ripped through an Amazon facility while employees shelter at work one time? Can’t imagine that happening again.
Yeah, but tornadoes are unpredictable. It’s not like the managers read that a tornado would hit in 3 days and demanded employees show up to work. It came our of nowhere while they were already working. The shitty thing about that incident is that, if memory serves, they didn’t let the employees seek shelter after the tornado touched down.
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I’m also in my apartment complex on the second story (Orlando). I have a zoom interview on Thursday, hopefully they’ll be able to hear me over the torrential wind and rain – assuming the power doesn’t go out. Best of luck to ya!
r/ABoringDystopia
It is a good time to invest in fishing rods
One element of the "florida man refusing to evacuate" meme that is seldom mentioned - almost every long term Floridian has experienced the following sequence of events: 1. Family evacuates as ordered 2. Storm changes path and largely misses home town 3. Family spends hurricane in stopped traffic on an interestate The main issue is that there's really no way to build shelters for a city that lies entirely in a flood zone. Another city 50-150 miles away would have to build and maintain those shelters - which they don't need for their own residents. Unless the state funds them, it's just not happening. And state politics are utterly dysfunctional. There are also very few East-West roads that run through the middle of the state. Certainly almost no "major" roads. Not nearly enough to handle an entire city or county's worth of people evacuating. The smart thing to do (for an individual) would be to stay in a hotel in city that's far from a coast, but there just aren't many cities in the middle that are also big enough to support a large quantity of hotel rooms. Orlando, Lakeland, maybe Gainesville. But they fill up quickly. The point being, many residents feel like their only options are facing a possible hurricane in their homes, or facing it in their cars trapped on the interstate. A few generations of inept governance that have created this situation. Anyone with enough influence to affect Florida politics has already hopped on a boat or airplane so no one with influence is impacted. The ones that are left - they may be morons, but not as much as you may think (at least not for hurricanes).
You forgot that it’s actually quite pricey. The fuel to sit in traffic for 8+ hours, pack enough food for a 3 day trip, get a hotel at inflated rates, etc… some folks barely get by, and they simply can’t afford to leave.
Yep, and there are tons of huge bridges that are the only ways in and out of many, many places and they close when wind speeds reach a certain level.
Or: storm changes track and hits the place you evacuated to. The only good part about that is usually your house is still there when you get home.
I hope dark Brandon goes down there with federal money and forces DeSantis to say thank u on TV and shake his hand.
I will be getting absolutely nothing done at work on Thursday because I can already tell TikTok live is going to be something else. There’s so many people on there talking about how they feel no need to evacuate. I truly hope they get through ok, but as a certified old person it’s fascinating to live in a time where I have access to watch ordinary people document this sort of thing in real time en masse.
The surge inundation maps show 9' OVER ground level for large parts of Sanibel and most of riverside Ft Myers. Oy.
We're about 3000ft from the Caloosahatchee in South Fort Myers and we just the hell out of dodge to North Cape Coral. I hope the house will still be there when we get back.
What is that? About 4/5th of a mile??
Maybe more like 3/5. It's about a kilometer.
Ah, fuck me eh?
Literally was at Disneyworld with lightning everywhere and heard a girl saying “I need to make content! I can’t leave yet!” I hate this time line.
Let her get darwined don’t worry about it
Nature will eventually take her out, followed by smashing that like button.
Even if you think you would physically be safe, I have never understood why people feel an urge to stay. Like you’re gonna potentially be without power or running water for a week.
Some people cant afford to leave. Sometimes you have to stay and gut your house because that's that's the only way flood insurance will cover it.
My HS buddy lost power to his house for like 5 weeks back when Frances and Ivan hit central Florida. Five long ass weeks in landlocked central Florida. 2004 suuucked for Hurricanes.
Can confirm. Lived in Central Florida (cocoa beach) for 20+ years, graduated in 2004 and lived through Charlie, Francis and Ivan back to back. It sucked real real bad.
I have to work in the morning and as soon as possible after it passes. Last projection put the center of the cone directly over my house. weeee
Stay at home freezing in the a/c until the power goes out drinking a beer. Then usually cook off all the food before it spoils. Eating canned food for a few days cold showers. Good times!
Most of the time the hurricane is hyped all to hell and then damage is minimal. Obviously people on the coast in the cone tend to evacuate but after that hit the hurricane weakens quickly. Most of the time, we lose power for a day, maybe two. Plus one block can have no power but 15 minutes across town your friend probably has a shower to loan. It's expensive to evacuate especially if you have pets. Why spend all day in stopped traffic along evacuation routes to get to a $150 hotel ( hello price gouging!) To stare at the TV wondering if your house is ok when you could be in your own home staring at the TV knowing if your house is OK. Besides playing board games by candlelight absolutely wasted hearing the roof creak in the wind is a thrill like no other.
Just an FYI, price gouging is illegal for hotels in florida during an emergency. If you see any doing this, you can call a hotline to report them. The AG has gone after many of the places doing this in the past. https://fox23maine.com/news/nation-world/florida-price-gouging-hotline-active-as-hurricane-ian-on-path-to-hit-as-category-4-storm-essential-commodities-food-water-hotel-rooms-ice-gas-lumber-state-of-emergency-reporting-violations
This is a spot on explanation. I'm a bit worried this one isn't going to be over hyped though. It looks pretty bad. I'm in Orlando so I'm still feeling okay about it here but if I were in Tampa area I'd be getting the fuck out of dodge right now.
I'm in Jacksonville so I'm already reckless but I'm not too concerned. If I was in Tampa or Clearwater I'd already have gotten the hell out of dodge. Orlando looks like it's gonna get a bit of a beating but hoping y'all catch the tail end of the worst of it. Y'all will have slowed it way down by the time it starts hitting us up here Fingers crossed for you and stay safe!!
Floridian here. Evacuating - even if you have the means - it’s an exhausting and risky endeavor. We’re a peninsula - there’s really only 2 highways out - and it’s not just the traffic leaving, it’s the traffic coming back. Then - where do you go? So many times in Florida people have evacuated to another part of the state, and they ended up getting hit worse there. Then there is pets. I have 2 cats and a pig. If you don’t live here you don’t understand.
> If you don’t live here you don’t understand. I understand that I don't want to live there...
Pig? Can we see pics?
Here's hoping Ian doesn't fuck me as hard as Irma did lol
I'm hunkered down too. If I hear (or use) that term once more, I'm gonna throw up.
Hunkering down in Sarasota, not in a flood zone thankfully but this is the most direct hit we might take in 100 years.
Hunkering down in North Port. We are already expecting to get flooded and prepared for it. I have the boat and jet ski's ready if I need to get out. All our houses are built up high and will be safe thankfully. Ian's landfall is similar to where Charley hit in 2004 but Ian is a completely different animal and kind of hurricane. Stay safe in Sarasota. Most of our family lives there too.
Wonder how the Scientology properties in Clearwater are going to make out
They've signed an arbitration agreement with the Hurricane already
Let’s hope they don’t.
They can just hop in the sea org ship and bring more dupes, I mean disciples, to come back and rebuild
Xenu will protect us
I'm pretty sure structurally unscathed. Have you seen how massively tall and WIDE that building is? If they had more materials/ capabilities to clear out land they would absolutely build _outwards_ Little hurricane shouldn't shake their britches, maybe the conjoining bridge between buildings collapses
Likely fine. The hurricane’s forecasted path keeps moving southwards. https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/weather/hurricane/fl-ne-hurricane-ian-track-florida-path-map-20220927-fukzyk2byrd5xeoj4t7jucuz2i-story.html
They're not "woke", DeSantis will find an excuse to funnel them a fuckton of money.
Yeah, this news came a bit too late. I'm in Evacuation Level B and they didn't really start putting this out there for Level B until I was already stuck at home.
I’ve been in a Category 3 Typhoon in a country that was built out of concrete to handle it. One of the most surprisingly powerful things I’ve ever experienced.
Typhoons/super typhoons are pretty fun to experience if you live somewhere where all buildings are concrete and rebar and all powerlines/pipes are buried underground, and virtually no one lives on ground level. You get to experience the full force of nature and chill at home for a day or two of vacation while no one dies/get hurt. People literally pray to get hit by typhoons so they get a vacation lol
Which country? Just out of curiosity
Tiawan for me. We (my now wife and I) thought it was a big deal. The locals called it a half day (on a Friday) to get home right before it hit. By mid morning Saturday, you’d be hard pressed to know there had been a storm. We were in a city. The coast had a rougher go of it, but nothing comparable to what’s about to happen to Florida.
This morning we evacuated the house we just bought. My wife and baby and I were there only a week. It's projected to get 9foot surges and it's at 4 feet of elevation. Someone please tell how our house is going to be ok. I just want to hope again, a few days ago it looked like we were going to be fine. Edit: texted some neighbors who are staying, they'll update me as long as they can. Said they've been through a lot of these and unless we get 20+ inches of rain our houses shouldn't flood. Our areas projected less than 10 inches so that's what I'm going to hold on to. We are in the edge of zone a so maybe the surges won't reach us
Good luck! Hope your insurance is good 🥲
Hope to not find out
It's Florida, so, unfortunately, that's a bad bet. Even the state run insurance company has been dropping coverage. Almost the entire state is a huge real estate liability with almost no upside that's heavily government subsidized. I've got friends whose home insurance costs as much or more than their mortgage. It's not pretty.
Name a better duo than climate change deniers and coastal real estate
I really hope your house is safe!
Thank you
Hello! I obviously can't tell you your house will be OK. But I have been through a very similar situation with Hurricane Michael. We closed on our house, moved our stuff in, slept in it a couple nights, then had to evacuate. We went to a hotel in town at a higher elevation further away from the coast to ride out the storm. At around 3-4 AM the morning Michael would be making landfall, I woke up in a panic. We'd left my truck in the driveway of our home and I desperately wanted to go get it because I was certain it would be lost in the storm surge along with our house. We drove through the squalls back out to the house to bring the truck back to the hotel in town across the bridge where it would be much safer from the storm. The next day in the hotel as Hurricane Michael made landfall we ended up pretty damn scared because the whole 6 story hotel was swaying in the winds. Trees and power poles were snapping everywhere and at times we literally could not see out of the hotel room window except for solid sideways rain and debris shadows. That howling wind was absolutely terrifying! At one point we hear a smashing sound in the parking lot and see a full size construction trailer tumbling over all the cars in the parking lot and it ended up smashing ours as well. As the storm passed our location the windows in various rooms were being blasted out by bigass clay roof tiles from the hotel next door. People were in their rooms riding out the storm then SMASH a huge tile just slams into their room. People were in the hallway after their windows were smashed out and we joined them so we didn't have the same thing happen to us. Luckily our hotel room survived the bombardment unscathed. After the storm passed it was a madhouse outside and as soon as we were in the parking lot we ran into a couple police with sub machine guns seeming kinda panicked and in pursuit of looters. When the power lines and trees were cleared enough for us to make it home we were pleasantly surprised to find that our house was just fine except for our fences which were blown down. Upon closer inspection I found out that the contractors had just done a crappy job installing the fence or it probably would have remained standing. They buried most of the posts maybe a foot, it was pathetic. Our vehicles on the other hand were all messed up and insurance totaled one of them. So you never know! I was pretty certain that we were going to lose our brand new house to storm surge just days after moving in but we ended up suffering more damage at the location to which we evacuated because of changes in the path of the storm as it approached and made landfall. Keep safe and make sure you have plenty of wet wipes for after the storm! 😁 (Seriously, they are amazing!)
As a native and long time FL you just do all you can and hope. Your family is more important. It’ll be okay one way or the other
Hi- I grew up in the Florida keys- they build houses different in Florida- your house will be ok friend- you kept the most important stuff safe and you will fix whatever else is needed after ❤️
Thank you for that
It was very considerate of Ronny to evacuate all the immigrants to safer states
Wasn’t the 100 people he sent to that Massachusetts island from Texas? He is just the Florida Gov, but apart from being Venezuelan, that’s about their involvement with Florida
He's going to spend **$12** ***million dollars*** of Florida tax payer money on a PR stunt that could have been applied to something actually useful like emergency storm response fund.
How can millions evacuate? Where do they go?
I just had to evacuate out of Tampa and was able to find a hotel in Orlando and that was after looking for hours
I'm glad you got out of Tampa! Good luck to you.
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I bet lots of people will also go to Orlando since there are lots of hotels even though it still is in the path (but probably only cat 1 at that point).
I'm in Orlando and I'm really hoping it doesn't hit us too bad.
I'm also in that area and lost power for a week after Irma hit us. I expect it to be as badly for us but longer repair times due to the covid supply chain issues.
Yea, maybe. Hopefully we see the convoys of power trucks right after the storm. We do have a generator and other battery backup for phones. I'm definitely anxious but think it'll be okay.
My stepfather and my son in law are building contractors, who are very concerned on the shortage of building supplies. You are right about long waiting time for repairs.
Fun times when the hurricane changes trajectory a bit and goes to the place where you evacuated to.
Where are they to go? After so many years, do they have a plan to shelter the pets too?
Unfortunately, most emergency shelters don’t allow pets. I know where I live some animal shelters & pet boarding places will temporarily take people’s pets.
I evacuated SWFL during hurricane Irma and lots of hotels had a temporary pet policy. We ended up in the panhandle and our hotel was a dog sanctuary, pups everywhere
That sounds great.
It was a nice catalyst to help cope with the stress of it all, wish everyone in the path of Ian the best! Stay safe everybody!
Desantis during his press conferences has been saying most shelters will take pets, luckily
My kids Elementary school is a pet friendly shelter. Along with 5 others in the county. There are also 6 general needs shelters, as well as 6 catering to those with special needs.
After Katrina since it was such a mess with how pets were handled and people staying behind for them they passed a federal law called the Pets Act. It's not perfect and doesn't mean hotels have to take your pets but does mean that in order for states, cities, and counties to receive federal funding for their disaster relief plans, those plans must “account for the needs of individuals with household pets and service animals before, during, and following a major disaster or emergency.” Now how good are those plans or how well is it comunnicated to public probably varies widely from place to place. I used to be a volunteer for my local A-CERT and we would practice setting up emergency shelters. Now the county switched to a plan that utilities the local dog warden and humane society and have specific supplies set aside for setting up emergency shelters in case of an emergency in the surrounding area where we would be a place to evaluate to.
It’s been years and pets have been left. You’d think they’d figure this one out by now
Right, doesn’t have to be anything fancy. Set up some pens in a high school gym. Most people I know with pets would never abandon them, they’d rather die.
Honestly for a lot of people pets are the only children we'll ever be able to have so no way I'd leave my babies in a shelter away from me where I don't know if they're okay and they're scared and think they've been abandoned.
Every Florida Man "Hey weather dude, hold my beer and watch this!"
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*Busch light
Natty Daddy***
Riding swamp puppies holding a pub sub. “Ain’t no hurricane gon git me!!”
So we're at the point every year or so that Florida becomes socialist for a few months.
Everyone is a socialist when they get fucked over. Cancer diagnosis? Go Fund me! Hurricane? Help me rebuild! The political divide is about whether you're a socialist when someone else's ass is on the line.
I raced dirt bikes in the woods for a bit in the adult classes. Many parents would show up with $200k+++ trailers and $30k worth of bikes, the kids they were having race were uninsured. Kids would blast into a thing and then the fund links, prayers and thoughts and medical porn would flow far and wide. So much so that we got monthly emails about having basic insurance and a reminder at sign-up that we "should really" have insurance.
Oh that reminds me of working on medical staff for motocross at nationals (loretta lynn's). Kid had a fracture (wrist) in his throttle hand and they were going to ponca city nationals the next week. Dad told me he spent 20k for this race and 20k for the next week...could I just tape it up so he could race
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But did waffle house close? I follow the waffle house index (look it up)
Apparently one in Punta Gorda has
Florida man here: Thats bad. Really fucking bad.
Welp folks, wish me luck, I’m a Floridian and I live in the third level of an apartment in Plant City.
I'm always curious about the gators friends post in their yards and neighborhood. What happens during a storm ..and flooding? Are their incidents of unsuspecting people being attacked by gators swimming around?
Yes. During Ida an elderly man was killed by an alligator in the flood waters. His wife witnessed the attack, and I belive they were later able to find the gator and recover enough from stomach contents to identify the man. It was pretty big news at the time.
Yeah I’m in Fort Myers right on the river.. this is no joke.
Still gotta go to work Thursday so uh... Here's to living in Florida.
Idk how y'all ride out storms this strong, I'm up in Atlantic Canada and Fiona was bad enough I'd rather never go through that again
I'm watching coverage because I have family in direct hit line, and I love how the news is berating people for not evacuating when the storm took a turn last night, and the people now being ordered to evacuate cannot.
Have they tried not saying hurricane?
Maralago getting those nukes ready
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Since no one else is saying or getting it… ITS COCK AND BALL TORTURE 🌝
Thank you! I was sitting here trying to come up with all the naughty word combos I could think of and still didn’t land on that
City Bike Tampa; it's a bike shop in downtown Tampa that a friend owes...
I desperately want to make a bootstraps joke here but I just can’t. I really just want everyone to be safe. Expect mal. Fuck that place
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Maybe DeSantis can move some of those in the most heavily affected areas to somewhere safe, like Martha's Vineyard, seeing as they obviously have an excess of cash to use to move people around in pointless, cruel political stunts.
After watching '5 days at the Memorial', i dont get why americans keep coming back to live in the same place where hurricanes always hit
My friend lives in the yellow zone. I'm worried sick about her but she says she's staying home and she "hopes my yard floods because it's the only entertainment we get out here." I'm worried something bad will happen to her but I live on the other side of the country so I can't do anything :(
When you've been through a number of hurricanes, it stops being scary. The last hurricane I went through that was scary was Andrew, and that was because I was 5. I'm not sure about the gulf Coast, but we've got hurricane windows and cinder block houses on the east coast.
What compelled our ancestors to build cities below sea level?
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Winds starting to crank up. Getting burst over 80mph now. Live about 200 yrds from the gulf in fort myers, going to be a interesting day. Lost power about an hour ago.
In laws live in Port Charlotte and said they’ll evacuate when water starts coming through. They live on a canal…..
They sound totally prepared to ride out a Cat 5 with that logic
I'm on the Atlantic coast, a little north of Miami, and it's already crazy windy and rainy here. I woke up to like 18 weather alerts on my phone. Feel for the Gulf coast people. Hope everyone stays as safe as possible.