HURRICANE MICHAEL RIPPED ACROSS Florida’s panhandle and then northeast through adjacent states, causing millions in damage and far too many deaths.
COULD SOME OF MICHAEL’S DAMAGE have been avoided?
Absolutely.
Could some of the deaths been prevented? Probably.
BELIEF AND BUILDING CODES
The “been there, done that” attitude of many Floridians dominated common sense and weather reports.
Again and again, the Panhandlers were told a Category 5 storm was about to make landfall where they lived.
The Cracker response was “Hurricane Party!” Go to someone’s house, drink too much, and go to sleep. When they wake up, the storm is over.
That’s fine and it works for Cat. 1 and Cat. 2 blows – it keeps fools inside when the eye passes and avoids stepping on downed, hot, power lines.
Because of this attitude, many people foolishly decided to “ride it out.”
Mexico Beach (Florida) was the Homestead of Hurricane Andrew – it was devastated.
Both Homestead and Mexico Beach – and surrounding areas, including Tyndall AFB – had the same problem: lousy building codes and worse building code compliance.1
- Since Andrew, south Florida’s building codes have been enhanced multiple times and building code inspections are taken seriously. (This scrivener lives in south Florida.)
The Panhandle’s building codes were not to south Florida standards, even though Gulf-bred storms are notorious for their severity. Neither private nor government buildings were ready for a Cat. 5 storm.
- When Michael came ashore, it was only a Cat. 4. After making landfall it increased to a Cat. 5 storm.2
While the winds are “bad enough,” storm surge also takes its toll. At Apalachicola near Mexico Beach, the surge was a “mere” 6.5 feet – thanks to a low tide and the shape of the coastline.3, 4
Better safe than sorry The lesson to be learned from Michael, aside from the obvious improvement in building codes and compliance, is that when a Cat. 5, of even a Cat. 4 storm is predicted and evacuation is suggested or ordered, GO.
The storm may make a sudden change in direction; it may suddenly weaken and the property will be spared. But trees and power lines will fall and some people who elected to remain will die.
Buildings and their contents can be replaced; lives cannot.
A FEW WORDS ON “POLITICAL CORRECTNESS”
I was informed the other day – shortly after reading Elaine Viets’ Brain Storm – that brain storm, the expression, has been declared “not politically correct.”
Apparently someone who knows someone with epilepsy has taken exception to the word in the belief that it mocks epileptics.
When I was younger, a person in a wheelchair was handicapped. The word was a catch-all for the replacement word: disability. Disability has been replaced by disadvantaged.
I’ll admit that having a mobility handicap – needed anything from a cane to a wheelchair – IS a handicap; getting up and down stairs, or even inclines can be difficult. Likewise being blind – may I still write that or must I write “sightless” or “visually impaired” -- can be limiting. But, as with most handicaps, these can be overcome and life goes on.
- Been there, doing that.
While the only true answer to the race question is human, we are challenged by the designations.
A dark-skinned person is, as I key this, black. In some instances, “Black” is capitalized while “white” is not. Before “black” became the descriptor du jour, it was African-American (in the U.S.); before that, negro and colored.
According to Oxford Dictionaries.com5,
- The word Negro was adopted from Spanish and Portuguese and first recorded from the mid 16th century. It remained the standard term throughout the 17th–19th centuries and was used by prominent black American campaigners such as W. E. B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington in the early 20th century. Since the Black Power movement of the 1960s, however, when the term black was favoured as the term to express racial pride. The word’s origin dates to the mid 16th century: via Spanish and Portuguese from Latin niger, nigr- ‘black’.
The foregoing is a cut-n-paste from the WWW.
In Israel, dark skinned people for many years were called “cushim” (cush-eem), or people from Cush.
According to the Jewish Virtual Library, the Bible mentions Cush several times6. The famous Queen of Sheba who came from Ethiopia to visit King Solomon in Jerusalem7 was, by most accounts, black. Many Israelis identify Cush not as in NE Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Libya), but as Ethiopia, south of Egypt.
The map, above, shows Ethiopia in relation to surrounding countries and gives an indication of the distance between Ethiopia and Israel.
In the image above, an Ethiopian couple are celebrating the pre-wedding henna, common to most communities from Africa to Oman. Henna is a dye placed on the hands of the bride – and sometimes the groom.
- Don’t trust the Internet. For some reason, many “Queen of Sheba” images, like images of Jesus, looks surprisingly European. Did they fade as they crossed the Mediterranean Sea?
There was nothing derogatory about the name; it was simply descriptive along the lines of black in the U.S. In Yiddish, blacks were called “swartz” – German and Yiddish for – you guessed it – “black.” (I knew a girl in junior high named Carol Swartz, but she wasn't.)
Apparently some ignoramuses (but not “ignorami”8) from the U.S. descended on Israel and declared that “cushim” was not politically correct and forced the word sha'hor'im on the nation. What does that mean? The same as “swartz” – black.
If anyone asks me, a geezer and curmudgeon, I tell them I have a handicap; that’s why I use a cane. If someone asks me to describe one of my neighbors, I say he is a 6’3” black man. I have other equally tall neighbors so the descriptive “black” is helpful.
Of course there is “black” and there is “black.” When the Black Power movement was in its heyday, light skinned blacks were looked down upon by ebony-colored blacks.
At least today I don’t have to shade my description of my neighbor.
Sources
1. http://tinyurl.com/y7fj2cgk
2. http://tinyurl.com/y9dckmc3
3. http://tinyurl.com/ydcrjqn3
4. http://digg.com/video/hurricane-michael-storm-surge-video
5. http://tinyurl.com/y9n3aonv
6. http://tinyurl.com/y8n25t7h
7. http://tinyurl.com/ydaykexy
8. http://tinyurl.com/y8s3tq7m
PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.
Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.
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