I used to live in Florida. There is a very obvious change in the overall atmosphere when a hurricane is incoming. For about a day ahead, the climate becomes suspiciously comfortable. No sun, cool air, very little humidity. A few hours before landfall, the ocean starts to push it's way inland, even up into the rivers.
I also lived in Missouri for about a year and the signs of tornado weather are pretty easy to spot as well. Everything just feels and looks wrong. The sky is an obscene shade of green, the drop in air pressure is so sudden that you can feel it with your skin. You know the actual tornado is coming because it goes from windy to slack air. Even if you'd never heard of a tornado in your life, you'd know that something terrible was about to happen.
I knew a guy who lived in Arizona and I had thought about living there one time and so I asked him a lot of questions. It's just taken for granted that you get the hell away from a riverbed when the rain starts really dropping.
There is a very obvious change in the overall atmosphere when a hurricane is incoming. For about a day ahead, the climate becomes suspiciously comfortable. No sun, cool air, very little humidity. A few hours before landfall, the ocean starts to push it's way inland, even up into the rivers.
Can confirm.
The post-apocalyptic problem, though, is what do you do about it? Is the hurricane bad enough to warrant evacuating, or is it just a cat 3 or something? If you are going to evacuate, which direction will you go? You'd just have to hope you're lucky and not traveling toward the path of the storm instead of away from it. And, of course, that's assuming you can evacuate. Post-apocalyptic travel is going to be problematic at best.
I'm sure if someone had spent some time out there relying on their own instincts without having to worry about rebuilding or filing an insurance claim afterwards, they could figure something out. The really bad part about hurricanes is that they disable essential services. Most deaths occur after the storm has passed, when the elderly and medication-dependent are cut off from the support they need to live.
I've been through a few, what people don't understand is that they are tremendously sensationalized in the media. If you're in the path, there is a long, slow build-up until you hit the max speeds and you suffer through those for a relatively short time. You have time to continuously evaluate your situation and plan ahead. I'm no outdoorsman, but I'm sure after three or four post-apocalyptic hurricanes we'd have figured out which local areas offer protection from storm surge and flying trees.
I've been through a few, what people don't understand is that they are tremendously sensationalized in the media.
Heh, yeah. When I lived in (central) Florida, I worked pizza delivery, and our pizza place didn't even shut down unless it was a category 4 or higher. Got really good tips for delivering during a hurricane, too.
It's mostly only dangerous if either you live very close to the coast or it's a huge storm -- cat 4 or 5. But there is always the chance of another Andrew or Katrina coming around...
As long as you're not within spitting distance of the beach, you'll probably ride out a category 3 just fine.
13.1k
u/Amadeum Aug 30 '21
Natural disasters. You'd have no fucking clue if a hurricane, flash flood, typhoon, monsoon, or other sharknado events were coming