Great. Everyone’s favorite state is going to be in the damned news again:
Officials Friday urged people in low-lying areas of three Florida Panhandle counties to evacuate as a rainy, better organized Tropical Storm Arlene moved toward a weekend landfall on an area still recovering from Hurricane Ivan nine months ago.
Arlene could build into a weak hurricane before hitting the northern Gulf Coast Saturday afternoon, with much of its rains and winds arriving much earlier, forecasters said.
Hurricane watches were posted from Panama City to the Louisiana-Mississippi border for the Atlantic season’s first tropical storm.
Yes, I know, it is terrible and awful what all these people are going to have to go through and all that and yadda, yadda, sympathy and empathy, yadda, but can we just evacuate the whole damned state and set off explosives on the border and hope it drifts off into the Atlantic? Or do nuclear tests so it is uninhabitable? Anything?
I am so sick and tired of hearing about Florida. The name alone is enough to set me on edge anymore.
Rick
Well, gee, I’m sorry Drudge doesn’t put up the siren for every coal-tipple mishap in your neck of the woods. But don’t go feeling all left out.
Cordially…
John Cole
I was thiking more along the lines of Elian Gonzalez, Election 200, terri Schiavo, the cuban and Haitian refugee bit, as well as the 8 or 900 hurricanes we seem to fund every summer so we can be treated to a fresh round of Elian Gonzalez, Terri Schiavo, etc. the following winter.
It is like the lunatic to sane person ratio is 300 to 1.
Rick
Way to talk about God’s Waiting Room.
Oh, you’re forgetting shark attacks, and Gay Disney debauches.
Cordially…
metalgrid
The reason people keep rebuilding in hurricane, earthquake and other disaster areas is because we keep paying them to do it.
Seriously, if a person’s house washes away and they get a new house absolutely free from the goverment in the same area, subsidized by someone else’s money, what’s the motivation for them to pick up and move to a safer area?
Fledermaus
Yes, surely both left and right can get together and hate Florida.
Seriously, it is one messed up state. Carl Hiaasen has made a living documenting the insanity there. Jebus, who was the asshat who decided to give them statehood?
Kimmitt
Florida: America’s Wang.
Christie S.
Yanno, as one of the residents of this state in question, I had to laugh at most of these posts. Trust me on this, many of us down here have felt the same at one time or another.
There is one point of disagreement, however. The government isn’t rebuilding our homes for us for free. If you didn’t have insurance, well then, you’re pretty much shit outta luck in the long term. If we had insurance, and we can get thru the boondoggle of red tape, the insurance company is paying to rebuild; slowly and begrudgingly.
That’s why so many companies are bailing on the state as fast as they can. Or if they can’t, they’re trying to slam another double digit rate increase thru. Our premiums are already thru the roof (pardon the pun). 45% of my monthly mortgage payment goes directly into escrow for the INSURANCE pymt, alone.
What the government did do was provide TEMPORARY…TEMPORARY…housing in the form of single wide trailers. And small ones at that, situated in the wonderfully scenic vistas of mall parking lots.
Either that, or in many cases, Tent Cities. Remember those videos of Dade’s tent cities after Andrew? 100,000 people, families…all living in GP Small’s for MONTHS.
As for moving…where the hell are we going to go? If we move out of state, we lose most options for any kind of aid. Unless some of you folks who live out of state know of something your state will do to help us move. In that case, please DO forward it on to me. I’m pretty tired of ducking storms myself.
Sorry if this comes out sounding cranky. I guess its the weather down here. It’s been raining for 10 days and counting. The prospect of Arlene coming anywhere near the state just adds to my general pissy mood.
Jeff
“….for every coal-tipple mishap in your neck of the woods”
Yeah, but I’ll bet John Denver never wrote a really cool song about Florida, did he?
(I can’t believe this Penn State grad just stuck up for West Virginia. Fuck Major Harris. OK, I feel better now.)
brenda
You needn’t worry too much, when the poles melt all you’ll hear from Florida is gurgling.
Jon H
“You needn’t worry too much, when the poles melt all you’ll hear from Florida is gurgling.”
No, they’ll make us pay to rebuild everything, on stilts.
Christie S.
LOL!
Mike Jones
The thing I don’t get is why this is considered “special”. Continuous news coverage, government bailouts, general uproar. Hurricane season happens every year, people. Don’t act like it’s unexpected. Sometimes I think we should try declaring a state of emergency for the whole Northeast every time we get a good snowstorm and seeing if we can get Federal money instead of having to take care of it ourselves.
Kimmitt
I have long been convinced that one of the reasons that many conservatives have such a dislike of government is that they have to live in states with conservative governments.
Rick
Well Kimmitt, I live in DC.
Am I an exception proving your rule?
Cordially…
Bill from INDC
A. The government doesn;t rebuild all those houses, insurance companies do.
B. I lived in Florida for 25 years and never had a house so much as lose a roof tile in a storm. Last year was an odd year.
M. Scott Eiland
What the government did do was provide TEMPORARY…TEMPORARY…housing in the form of single wide trailers. And small ones at that, situated in the wonderfully scenic vistas of mall parking lots.
I think that might explain last year–I have a theory that trailer parks–whether permanent or impromptu–are tornado/hurricane magnets. Seems like if each hurricane that blows through creates more temporary trailer parks, you might have one heck of a nasty positive feedback mechanism there–maybe the government should start providing igloos or caves as temporary housing following national disasters. :-P
Slartibartfast
Bite me, John.
It was only a teeny weeny tropical storm, but apparently there’s big money in televising hurricanes, so I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised if someone, somewhere, weren’t working to see if we can encourage the formation of more of them.
Oh, and I asked for, and actually got, zero dollars and zero cents from FEMA. Some people did in fact get FEMA aid, but in general those are the people whose houses were utterly destroyed.
If you got rid of Florida somehow, all of those hurricanes would just smack into south Georgia and Alabama. Which, come to think of it…
Slartibartfast
Bite me, John.
It was only a teeny weeny tropical storm, but apparently there’s big money in televising hurricanes, so I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised if someone, somewhere, weren’t working to see if we can encourage the formation of more of them.
Oh, and I asked for, and actually got, zero dollars and zero cents from FEMA. Some people did in fact get FEMA aid, but in general those are the people whose houses were utterly destroyed.
If you got rid of Florida somehow, all of those hurricanes would just smack into south Georgia and Alabama. Which, come to think of it…
Slartibartfast
Ah, crap.
Kimmitt
Am I an exception proving your rule?
Dude, learn to read.
Rick
Dude, learn to read.
Hmmm. We’re not on the same page here. Either that, or you’re the one struggling with the polysyllable I used.
Cordially…
Slartibartfast
Rick, unless you’re “many conservatives” embodied (which, I suppose, is possible although unlikely) I don’t think you’ve got a point. Neither does Kimmitt, but that goes right along with the tossing-out of vague, meaningless generalities. We might as well be talking about many liberals and nanny states, here.