I’m Sure They’ll Go Somewhere Else for Trump
There’s one thing you need to know about hurricanes: They don’t mind well.
I’ve lived through several bigs ones in my life, Carla in 1961 comes to mind first because it hit us directly and the eye of the storm went over our house. Hurricane Celia almost caused my wedding to be postponed. Danielle, Alicia, Jerry, Allison, and Ike also come to mind at my house. And Katrina. I wasn’t in New Orleans but we helped take in the refugees in Houston. I was assigned a small 87 year old woman who had been separated from her family and didn’t know where they were.
Hurricane season started last week. I just want you to know that we are entering hurricane season with no director of FEMA because Donald Trump needs to play golf. Even scarier, we have no NOAA Director, so we will be playing Roulette Landfall.
Trump meanwhile has made no move to appoint a new boss at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the agency in charge of the National Hurricane Center and the National Weather Service, which provide hurricane forecasts and hurricane warnings in advance of a storm.
Incidentally, NOAA Is predicting an above-average hurricane season this year. Trump’s proposed budget has targeted both agencies for cuts.
So, here’s my point, if we could get hurricanes to mind well, we could get it to go hit Mar-a-Loco and then stop.
But hurricanes don’t mind worth crap.
Thanks to everybody for the heads up.
“But hurricanes don’t mind worth crap.”
Mar-a-Puck-Hole is closed for the season. However, Donnie has a few more coastal bathing holes further north where a well-mannered hurricane could blow the golf club out of his hand. But you are correct that we cannot rely on hurricanes, Ms. Juanita Jean Herownself. Maybe if we spelled it differently as in HERicanes and HIMicanes? More specifically whatever will the Secret Service do in a battle in which code name Nipples attempts to cash in early on code name Numbnuts insurance policies? #FreeMelania
1I was born during Audrey. Carla is the earliest storm I remember. Going into Hurricane Season without a NOAA Dir. is just insane. I wonder if they’ve even bothered to fund FEMA.
2Slightly off topic, but what do hurricanes and divorces have in common? Each starts with a lot of huffing and puffing and end with someone losing a house and a car!
3Bob Fenton, the current Acting Administrator for FEMA, is very experienced and knowledgeable. He has the ear of Kelly (head of DHS) and years of experience. The lack of leadership at NOAA and the National Hurricane Center are of greater concern.
4Hey, I know someone who would be outstanding as the director of the National Hurricane Center!
Sarah Palin! She would bring a plate of cookies, and that would make everything all better!
http://www.themudflats.net/archives/18776
5I grew up in Miami, FL. and hurricanes were part of life. In our first house–a low to the ground cocina rock bungalow–we had heavy wooden shutters as well as screens and glass windows. Despite all that when a hurricane hit, I would find dried leaves blown into my bed. Nowadays hurricanes seem to hit the Gulf coast more frequently than the east coast.
Many people lived in trailer parks in those days, and public schools were opened so that people in insecure housing could ride out the storm.
6Florida seems to be on a 12 year cycle. 1992 – Miami, 2004/05, the whole state, and now 2017. The state motto during H-season is “Be Prepared”. Maybe Gov. Scott could tweet that to the Donald, reminding him there’s no golf during a hurricane!
7JAKvirginia, hush, please. If anyone tweets anything to codename Numbnuts, let it be that hurricane force winds could improve his drive by 200+ yards.
8Actually, those agencies will probably work better without one of dRump’s designated cronies mucking things up.
9Trump’s administration is looking more and more like Shrub’s on steroids. Remember “Brownie”, the hapless head of FEMA during hurricane Katrina? Remember the pictures of Baby Bush partying with Willy Nelson as the people of New Orleans were drowning? If Trump takes up the violin, it will be a sign of The End Times.
10What june said. My brother has worked for the National Weather Service since 1993. They’re all a buncha geeks and nerds. My brother also worked for years on that fancy new satellite that went up late last year and is supposed to go online–officially–this month which will provide the most astonishing pictures of storms we have ever seen.
Just like those “blood-sucking, lazy-a$$ed” civil servants at FEMA, the folks a the NWS will have everybody’s backs. Despite the Orange One and any lackey he might put in the top jobs. Or, maybe IN spite of them.
11@Paul
12A tea party divorce and a tornado are similar: somebody’s gonna lose their trailer.
JAK don’t count on Gov Scott he and the legislature want to lower the building codes to a level that the homes will not sustain hurricane force winds. Idiots.
Building codes are a great line of defense against wind and flooding. But you know, regulations are all bad.
13No director of FEMA?
Orangie, you’re doing a heck of a job!
14Chloe Bear! Really? Are you serious? My doG, how nuts is that? They’re lowering a standard that wasn’t that stringent to begin with, like tying your roof into the foundation so hurricane winds won’t blow it away. A builder friend down there explained the process and said it was a small cost to the buyer but a great safety feature for you and your neighbors. I am so happy I left the Cracker Barrel in 2012.
15I’m willing to bet that the only FEMA money that gets spent in the Trump administration will be grants to rich people to repair things like Trump’s golf courses. The little guy can just hunt and peck with the chickens after he loses his house.
16JAK I wish it were not true.
http://livesite-prd-5.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/craig-fugate-keep-florida-communities-safe-preserve-floridas-strong/2318240
17What June said. The second-tier bureaucrats have got this–like they have most of the government, since we’re without agency heads, US attorneys, and senior diplomats –at least for a while. Their counterparts kept the government running during the end of the Nixon administration, and they’ll keep it going now, unless something happens where we really need the expertise of those that were fired. Then we’re SOL. Trump’s terrible, no-nothing choices would just get in the way.
Remember the distant past, like six months ago, when we had a competent government?
18Have had some up close and personal with a hurricane like a lot of you did. Normally we don’t get this stuff as we are at least 70 miles up the Potomac River from open salt water but it can happen. A helluva hurricane hit D.C. even before I was born and right now I am about as old as dirt. It drowned every part of the area below a certain footage. That was before FEMA existed and there really wasn’t a warning. Then Agnes hit right after we moved into our house, right after we had planted a truck garden in the back yard. My late husband came from Louisiana and Agnes did not impress him one bit. I was packed and ready with our baby to even try to make it down the street to the emergency shelter in the elementary school. What i vividly remember: all of the bean poles he constructed came through the storm without a hitch; the aftermath of the storm left everybody’s brain fried. We had a sprinkle of rain a few days later and there was so much panic on the highways that you though the Martians had invaded. I also remember stories of people in cars being swept from roads to their deaths in nearby creeks. One car had a mother and children in it.
And then there was Katrina. My late husband’s family and friends were caught in that. One friend died. And along with that storm our respect for FEMA went clean out the window and has yet to return. Under this administration, if FEMA was ever caught air-borne it would probably be shot down as an invading alien under the Darin the Swamp plan.
19Can we all go a little easy on FEMA? Like any organization, when there’s an idiot in charge it makes the whole place look bad. I’ve seen the actual working and helping part of FEMA and they do the best they can with the leadership they have. Same goes for any government worker.
20Also of note, NOAA’s weather programs and models are falling behind, and moneys to upgrade them to state-of-the-art (Europe’s models are presently the best) have been cut from this year’s proposed budget. These are particularly important for hurricane models, where a day or two’s better forecast of landfall/winds can make substantial differences to storm preparations.
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