Given the frequency and fierceness with which hurricanes are hitting coastal areas of this country, it is beyond baffling why some people still refuse to evacuate even when ordered to do so by authorities.
Along the Florida Panhandle, search-and-rescue units are continuing to look for bodies after the most powerful hurricane to hit the continental United States in nearly 50 years smashed that part of the state with a force painfully familiar to many Mississippians.
Video, pictures and stories of the storm bring Hurricane Katrina to mind immediately. Like Michael, Katrina in 2005 destroyed its entry point on the Gulf Coast, and then proceeded to cause untold damage inland.
Although the damage from Hurricane Michael is widespread, the worst hit was in Mexico Beach, where 155 mph winds flattened the town of 1,000. Despite the dire warnings that Michael was a terribly powerful and dangerous storm, some residents ignored orders to go northward and get out of harm’s way.
Amazingly, as of Wednesday, hard-hit Florida had reported only 16 deaths from the hurricane. Twelve of those were in Bay County, where Mexico Beach is located. While it’s possible more deaths will be reported, so far the loss of life is low given the power of the storm.
Michael was a fast-moving storm — as evidenced by the wind speed when it came ashore — but residents along the Panhandle had at least two days’ notice to evacuate. Why didn’t everybody get out?
Some may have been physically unable, but most appeared to either doubt that the storm would be as bad as forecasters were saying, or decided that they would rather take their chances than deal with the hassle of leaving and trying to get back after the storm passed through. That was a terrible choice, and a fatal one for some.
Brock Long, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, could only shake his head with the frustration of trying to save people who think they are immune from the forces of nature.
Standing up to a 10-foot-high wall of water is just suicidal, he said: “Very few people live to tell what it’s like to experience storm surge, and unfortunately in this country we seem to not learn the lesson.”
Uncontrollable forces of nature — such as hurricanes, flooding and tornadoes — must be taken seriously by everyone. And if climatologists are right, these disasters are going to occur more often.
Pay attention to what happened in Florida. Etch it in your memory banks. When authorities tell you to get out — or to take cover — do it.
