Hurricane Helene / Milton

[Easy-X]

Okay, so the general "consensus" on the social medias is the federal government over there isn't doing enough. Bit like the OAP heating allowance debacle: "oh, you have money to send abroad but nothing for us?"

FEMA are the problem apparently, actively getting in the way of relief efforts. The current jab is "black helicopters" hovering too low over aid sites to cause mayhem. Given BBC Verify have deemed it necessary to wade in to the tin-foil-hattery, something's afoot
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[stinkwheel]

What I don't get is with all this kind of thing. People are prepared to accept pretty wild conspiracy theories about poor government response to emergencies of all kinds when good old fashioned incompetance is the most likely -and highly believable- explanation. The person whos job it is to deal with this shit has no idea what they are doing.

I mean, they're supposed to be engaging in some sort of hush-hush skulduggery when they can't even fiddle their own expenses without being found out.
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[Easy-X]

Never attribute to malice what simple ignorance would explain. And these are Americans we're talking about On the other hand this is an election year. You'd think whoever's in charge (not Biden obviously) would make damn sure the response was flawless.

It's a retread of the Maui wildfires: the authorities had <gulp> "sinister motives" and deliberately let areas burn so there'd be cheap real estate. Like they could be that organised
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[bugeye_bob]

The Government choppers couldnt get into the small LZ`s
They were too big, not tin foil hat time, I know someone who was assisting with Helene recovery efforts.

[mentalboy]

It's complete bollox spread by small minded assholes with a public voice and often hundreds of miles away from the problems.

There is currently a rumour spread by a right wing twat that 12 federal helicopters have been grounded at a local airport and not permitted to distribute aid. Those same 12 Chinooks have been flying aid in and out from a service area of the airport because 1) it makes sense that they depart from where aid is stored in hangars and 2) despite what some uneducated twat thinks, helicopters don't need to use airport runaways because...helicopters, duh. Just because you don't see them on the runways doesn't mean they aren't coming and going - some of the locals have commented about the racket they currently endure with helicopters coming and going in all hours daylight hours and yet still this bollox is pushed because people would rather believe some twat on X who has a picture of 'Women for Trump' as her background photo must therefore know precisely how the whole bloody universe works.

There are plenty of well educated, intelligent Americans around, some of you might even have met some them, but it's hard to see them when there are as many poorly educated idiots who think that every conspiracy theory is a hard fact. This isn't a jab at right wingers, there are plenty of left wingers and middle of the road types who are equally susceptible to conspiracy theories because their education didn't progress as far as determining the dual meaning of Po-ta-to.
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[mentalboy]

And to continue...
People look at Florida and see a well oiled machined that is ready and waiting, usually before a hurricane strikes. The feds provide whatever assistance a state asks for once it has declared a state of emergency and requested assistance. Florida has had to do this several times a year for at least the last thirty years, it is well used to navigating requesting help from the feds.
Coastal SC gets the occasional whallop but hurricanes are pretty much unheard of in the Upstate, where I live, and the same in the NC mountains just over the state line. They are used to declaring a state of emergency for small areas but just don't have the system response in place for large scale mass damage caused by both wind and flooding, that not only trashes whole communities but takes out huge swathes of the power grid and water systems. No doubt there will be some rectification towards improving responses but there will be plenty of finger pointing over this one.
One of the NC county's, that I spend much of my working life in, is still unable to provide a death toll figure more than two weeks after the event.

My stepkids are both in the area of FL where Milton made landfall. This one was unusual in that it came from due west straight across the Gulf of Mexico, rather than the usual routes up through the Caribbean. It was fresh on the heels of Helene, so many areas were still flooded from that and there hadn't been enough time to clear up the debris, generally speaking the biggest threat to property and people comes from flying debris.
One thing I don't understand is why the people on the East coast were caught with their pants down, any person who has been through a hurricane knows that the shitty weather can arrive long before the bulk of the storm passes by.
As well as rampant unchecked development, which only exacerbates any water run-off problems, there are huge numbers of people who have moved in from out of state who don't know the best action to take before a storm hits. Old scrote retirees who refuse to leave their shitty trailer, selfish types panic buying both at the fuel pumps and supermarkets, leaving evacuations too late so that the roads just get jammed up.
Both my kids knew that if they were to stay that they needed to head to the relative with the property most likely to weather a storm. My stepdaughter has a new build with hurricane shutters, 30' above sea level (that's like being on a mountain down there) so she stayed in place, her boyfriend stopped with her, her dad and his wife, who's place was likely to flood stayed with her, as did the boyfriend's parents and siblings. The beer and board games were cracked out and no doubt joviality was had by all until the power went out, at which point they retired to bed. Next morning revealed no damage although the flood waters had entered the garage.
Stepson spent the few days prior boarding up his home and then he and his girlfriend stayed with her parents, again no damage. Bizarrely enough pretty much everyone we have been in contact with since has sustained little to no damage. Although both stepkids, their better halves and my wife's ex have all said that they are now looking to relocate out of state as these storms are getting bigger and more unpredictable while new development is reducing storm drainage and increasing the risks from flooding.

Our small town which is used to tornado warnings (and I can't recall one ever hitting within the town limits) is believed to have gotten hit with 6 the morning Helene blew through, it trashed mature oaks everywhere (including one of the three on my property that landed on my garage roof), that happens in Florida but not to nearly the same scale because the trees there are walloped so often that there is far more resilience to a bit of wind. My missus, who has grown up around hurricanes all her life says that the damage up here far exceeds anything she ever saw in Florida. We were without power for a week and the internet was almost bang on two weeks before being restored, there are still people in our county with no power. Our Florida friends and family all seem to have had power and internet restored within two days of Milton hitting them, and most had no power interruption from Helene.
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[bugeye_bob]

I have friends that have been hit by both recent hurricanes, one was a private Heli pilot who helped in Helene,
The locations of those hit in the two are totally different terrain,
Built up areas like were hit in the Milton hurricane are in a more densely populated area, cities and towns, the first hurricane was on more rural areas,
The power networks are different, the rural guys will be on the equivalent of a radial circuit, so strung out one after the other, if there is a break those further on will have no power,
In the towns/Cities you will be on a system more like a ring main, so they can feed either way,
This is a very basic example but should hopefully explain the electrical issues you mention.

[mentalboy]

[Easy-X]

Cleetus (the Floridian drag racing guy) did before/during/after videos which were interesting. He had his trailer/camper thing hooked up to the house for emergency power and water.

Roof lost some shingles, "not as bad as we expected."
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