When I checked the President’s schedule, I did a double-take and checked the date twice. Biden is indeed speaking again today about the ongoing federal response to Hurricane Ian.
You know, if President Biden had just thrown the rolls of paper towels on the first day, he would be totally done with this! //
I have not heard from my godmother yet, and my goddaughter is in Ian’s path today in North Carolina.
I watched a video of a storm surge, and I cried watching it. It’s one thing to read about it, but it’s another thing to see it. Anyone who wants to shelter in place when evacuations have been ordered should be forced to watch a video like that. On the other hand, if you told me I had to leave and that my dogs and cats would have to fend for themselves in a natural disaster, I don’t see how I could do that, either.
Is anyone else still waiting to hear about homes, friends or family?
May this be the worst that anyone else has to experience from the storm today.
Cat-egory 3 hurricane.. pic.twitter.com/ookM6MrZKn
— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) September 28, 2022
h/t someone in another thread, but I don’t know which thread or which person.
Open thread.
Update: time changes from 11:30am to 1:30 pm
SiubhanDuinne
What time is Biden scheduled to speak today?
ArchTeryx
There was an article up on the Great Orange Satan this morning that this is the perfect time for (creative) partisan politics, and for once I 100% agree.
You don’t need to use the people of Florida as political footballs to do it, either. Just call the disaster aid exactly what it is – socialism, and *relentlessly* hammer DeSantis for voting against aid for Sandy. Over and over and over again. Tell them flat out “If a Republican were running the federal government all you’d get is paper towels tossed at you.” Make damn well sure they know EXACTLY who is coming to their aid.
And who isn’t.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: I normally put that in the title, so thanks for the reminder.
Biden is scheduled to speak at 11:30, and it’s in the title now. :-)
Mingobat (f/k/a Karen in GA)
I hope you hear from your godmother soon, Watergirl.
Baud
@ArchTeryx:
I don’t know why people believe calling things socialism sells, especially to Florida voters.
Omnes Omnibus
@ArchTeryx: It isn’t socialism and calling it that isn’t good politics. Pointing out that there are things that individuals can’t do alone and that;s why we have the government is a good idea though.
Doug R
@Omnes Omnibus: Y’all got scared off that word something fierce.
Me, I enjoy my $0 premium health care and the rate decrease and rebate I got from my government car insurance.
WaterGirl
@Baud: @Omnes Omnibus:
Yes!
ArchTeryx
@Baud: The idea isn’t to sell it. It’s to start creating enough confusion that they can’t use it as an ooga-booga word. Are Florida voters so utterly stupid they’d rather drown and lose all their possessions just so they didn’t have to accept “socialism?”
ArchTeryx
@WaterGirl: That was part of it too, yes. Take on Reaganism head-on, bluntly, and proudly.
Mike in NC
Brother in NH emailed me about the storm. Here on the coast we’re getting lashed with wind and heavy rain but we’re on high ground where flooding is not an issue.
Omnes Omnibus
@Doug R: Oh ffs. I would love those here, but calling it socialism isn’t going to work here.
AliceBlue
My niece and her family are in Charleston. I’ve been trying to contact them since last night, but have had no luck.
Baud
@Doug R:
I’ll be scared of it until enough voters in the right places aren’t.
Plus, as Omnes said, it’s not really socialism, except under the GOP definition of that word.
ArchTeryx
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s not supposed to work. It’s supposed to sow seeds of doubt in the so-called “swing” voters that maybe the “S” word isn’t the root of all evil in the world.
Kropacetic
But socialism is truly not the correct word. I’m fine with promoting socialism, this ain’t it. We don’t need to start playing the Republican games of appropriating words, misusing them for our own purposes, and misinforming people in the process.
ArchTeryx
@Kropacetic: Honestly, I think that’s exactly what we should be doing. We don’t need to beat them at their own game. Just make it a lot more difficult to play. Make words mean what WE want them to mean for a change. That will help stop the Pavlovian response to it from swing voters.
Baud
@ArchTeryx:
If that’s the purpose, it’ll fail. Just like the GOP faithful understand that White Socialism isn’t socialism.
@Kropacetic:
Unless you can do it in a cool way, like Dark Brandon.
Baud
@ArchTeryx:
There are actual socialists who would be offended by us dumbing down “socialsm” to mean something other than they want it to mean.
Citizen Alan
@Baud: I think the point is that this might be an opportunity not redefine “socialism” as “the government working for everyone.” Because conceptually, it’s all about where do you draw that line between “good socialism” (roads, police, disaster relief) and “bad socialism” (Obamacare, maintaining national parks, and, lately, public schools). And as we all know, Republicans are perfectly fine with socialism so long as the benefits only go to white people.
Scout211
My sister heard from a friend yesterday (Orlando) who lives a few miles from her. Her friend’s entire housing development was under water and everyone had to be rescued by boat. She had to leave everything behind. The assisted living facility (in the same area) where my dad lived until his death had to be entirely evacuated because the first floor was flooded. Flooding more than the winds is what is causing the most damage in Orlando from Ian.
Citizen Alan
@Kropacetic: Why not? Because when they go low, we should go high or something like that?
Citizen Alan
@Baud: Most of those “actual socialists” are the enemy because they’d rather see Republicans beat Democrats to “heighten the contradictions.”
WaterGirl
@Scout211: Yikes. To lose everything you own. Just thinking about that makes me cry.
WaterGirl
President Biden is one busy guy. I can’t even imagine how he fits in the 10 hours of “executive time” watching TV every day.
hueyplong
What you want to do is get “normies” used to the idea that GOP references to Socialism are bullshit.
Just keep saying that the specifically named popular thing we are doing “is what the GOP calls Socialism, but is instead just good government that helps ordinary people. And the way you can tell is that [named GOPer] is taking credit for it despite the fact that [he/she] voted against it.”
Over and over again, using the same words. That’s how propaganda works. Word it for the idiots. The smart people are already on board.
ArchTeryx
@Baud: Do they matter, really? How many of them vote? Not many, if the exit polls of the past are much to go by. The idea is to try and break the stranglehold the GOP have on the language, not to convince the population that “socialism” = “best.”
But if not using the word “socialism” then what would work best for that goal?
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Hahaha.
That difference isn’t discussed enough.
Soprano2
I’m gonna post this here again, because it was interesting. A person on Twitter going by the handle Birding PeepWx posted a lot of videos of the hurricane in FL.
TaMara
So, I see we’ve devolved into attacking one another early. Good. Good.
My brother’s family, who live on Cape Coral, checked on their house and it came through unscathed. Probably as much due to the fact it was hit by a tornado 6 years ago, and all the repairs were made to the latest and strictest code. It also sat just high enough and far enough away from any of the many canals to avoid storm surge.
And to those questioning evacuation – they literally had about a day’s notice, and even with having a place to go where they could take the animals with them, it was tight trying to get out. I can’t imagine how it was for folks without their resources or the elderly. Everyone forgets that Tampa was the original target, and that’s where they were urging folks to evacuate. People in Ft Myers area were put on standby until about 24 hours before, and then suddenly, it was mandatory.
And then where to go? The storm was huge – even where my family evacuated, it was a scary few hours.
ArchTeryx
@hueyplong: You worded it far better than I have been. Thank you.
Baud
@ArchTeryx:
How about liberalism? That covers good government without stepping on the toes of actual socialists and their ideology.
Also too, I’m not sure where the people who are “democratic socialists” but not quite full socialists feel about this. There are enough of them to cause trouble.
Kropacetic
@Citizen Alan: You don’t fight lies with more lies. That’s their territory. They’re better at it. And our side, on a fundamental level, cares about the truth and won’t stand for it.
RobertDSC-Mac Mini
My friend in Lake Mary got in touch with me. She didn’t have a ton of damage, but there is lots of tree debris in her yard. It was a load off my mind to read her message saying she was OK.
Kropacetic
@hueyplong: I like your approach better.
Baud
All this socialism talk reminds me, I haven’t seen Schrodinger’s Cat’s nym in a couple of weeks.
ArchTeryx
@TaMara: I don’t think anyone is attacking anyone. We’re having a vigorous debate in an open thread, but nobody’s resorted to ad hominem or started cracking mom jokes.
The root of it is how to use this disaster to benefit us Democrats, in a partisan way, *in addition* to helping the people in Florida. To get some kind of political advantage, because the stakes this November couldn’t be higher.
Baud
@TaMara:
Eh, it’s a civil debate among fellow socialists.
Kropacetic
“Liberalism” covers Republican politics too, at least the economic component of liberalism. Granted, they practice a rather radical form, while Democrats are fairly conservative.
Citizen Alan
@Kropacetic: I’m sure smug self-righteousness will be very comforting as the nation descends into fascism.
brantl
@Omnes Omnibus: Government centered around the common good is very much socialism, and is much more “Socialistic” than the privateering that the Repubs sell as capitalism. Unfettered capitalism is as close to piracy as you can get, without the dress code.
Baud
@Kropacetic:
Not in the U.S. I get the historic and international meaning of the word, but that’s something we’ve bastardized a long time ago.
Kropacetic
@Citizen Alan: It’s smug to not want to deliberately confuse and misinform people?
Honestly, your statement is pretty damn smug.
Right. What I propose is working toward unbastardization.
Baud
@brantl:
There are a lot of gradations between unfettered capitalism and (actual) socialism.
brantl
@Citizen Alan: Oh, horseshit.
ArchTeryx
In the end we can argue about HOW it’s achieved and there’s plenty of room for debate there! But the root of it is we never, as Democrats, ever get any kind of political credit for helping people in a time of need, And with straight-out fascist Republicans on the razor’s edge of taking over the House, we need all the political credit we can get, as well as a way of defanging the Republican attacks on, you know, helping people in a time of need.
Baud
@ArchTeryx:
I can see a situation where a Republican accuses a Dem of socialism, and the Dem responds “Is helping out the people of Florida after a devastating hurricane socialism?”
I can’t see a Dem affirmatively advocating disaster relief is socialism.
brantl
@Citizen Alan: Get down off your cross, we need the wood,=.
ArchTeryx
@Baud: And highlight their hypocracy. Shamelessness may be their superpower, but voting against disaster relief for thee but not for me tends to stick in people’s craws when they are looking at the wreckage of their lives after a storm like this monster.
The Republicans believe in collective punishment. We believe in collective aid. Whatever you call it, people need to have that difference hammered hard going into November.
Baud
@Kropacetic:
Next thing you’ll want us to go metric.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Exactly.
brantl
@Baud: As Bernie once said, VERY accurately, if you receive Social Security, you’re a card-carrying socialist. Head Start is socialism, WIC is socialism, school lunches are socialism. There are plenty of damn fine programs in this country that are socialism.
Kropacetic
For the record, I consider myself a socialist. I’d rather have the Democrats a million times over.
While I’d prefer a party with a solid plan and sufficient support to move us away from capitalism, the principle vector upon which we accept exercise of unelected power, such parties are in short supply to the point of non-existence.
Furthermore, the Democrats exist in a version of reality I can recognize and want, at least, to make capitalism function more humanely. Besides which, if socialists were to ever actually start attaining power, I’d like to see that develop in a culture like the Democrats; who recognize the need to build foundations and not just impose sweeping changes by fiat.
Granted, I’m fairly conservative in terms of other socialists I’ve read, watched, or interacted with
Makes math far easier when making lemonade.
Burnspbesq
@Mike in NC:
one step closer to the inevitable disappearance of the Outer Banks.
Baud
@brantl:
“If you shop on Amazon, you’re a card-carrying capitalist.”
It’s a pithy turn of phrase, which has its uses, but it’s fairly devoid of substance.
Also too, I’m so old, I remember when socialism was primarily about the relationship between workers and the means of production.
Burnspbesq
I kinda doubt that “hey, your Governor is a fucking hypocrite” is a message that will sway Floridians.
A better bet might be “hey, your Governor tried to fuck your grandkids who still live in Jersey.”
Make it personal.
TaMara
@ArchTeryx:
@Baud:
🤣😘
WaterGirl
@TaMara: That’s the point that I was trying to make, though I didn’t do it well. My godmother is 84 and she chose to stay, even though evacuation had been ordered in her area.
I knew about storm surges, but there’s something about seeing the video of one that completely changes the equation. The power of the water is mind-boggling. I just wonder if she would have chosen not to evacuate if she had seen a video like that.
Even if there’s plenty of warning, would make the same choice if they had?
Add to that the people who are older, or poor and don’t have a car and can’t afford transportation even if they could get it, or the people who don’t have friends or family they can evacuate too.
Unless you have a real understanding of how bad it can get, and a ton of notice and plenty of resources, it seems like an impossible situation.
Not to mention the “what if” factor. What if they are wrong in the predictions and you leave the “danger” zone, evacuate somewhere else, and that’s what actually gets hit. I recall that happening to someone on BJ last year, but maybe it was with the fires?
Kropacetic
Your mom’s so socialist, she founded an independent workers’ cooperative.
Baud
@Kropacetic: You trying to get banned?
Omnes Omnibus
@brantl: And this is why the use of the term is bad politics. Even our side cannot agree on a definition.
“I believe in helping those who need help. None of us really knows when that person might be us.” Or as my conservative grandfather put it: “Old people and childless people paid for the schools my children attended. It’s only fair that I pay for schools now.”
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: Now let’s do “defund the police”. //
Citizen Alan
@Kropacetic:
TBH, I am exactly the same. I’m just worn down by the fact that every self-described socialist I know in real-life continually insists that the Democrats and the Republicans are just the same because neither of them is willing to abolish capitalism (and not even gradually; they all want it done overnight by dictatorial fiat). So I apologize for any offense, but I am just so damned tired of us getting bogged down while trying to explain the difference between “Democratic Socialist” and “Social Democrat” while approximately 45% of the country calls us “baby-killing Marxists.”
WaterGirl
Usually when these things are late, I figure there is some late-breaking event or change that has to be worked out. I’m not sure what that would be today.
John Revolta
@Burnspbesq: Another damn socialist! Always trying to bring down the Banks.
Kropacetic
@Citizen Alan: Make Political Philosophy Cool Again!
MPPCA. Snappy.
Is it working? Seriously, if I didn’t get banned in 2016…
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropacetic: As a government major from back when political philosophy was the core element of the degree, I must take issue with your use of “again.”
WaterGirl
There’s another post up, while we wait.
Kropacetic
@Omnes Omnibus: Hahaha. I was thinking more to the halcyon days of the enlightenment, my views of which were no doubt completely uninfluenced by our Euro-centric, Founder mythtologizing American edumaction system…
James E Powell
@Omnes Omnibus:
As The Boss put it, we take of our own.
waspuppet
@ArchTeryx: Absolutely. Biden definitely should not ask DeSantis “I don’t look so bad now, do I?” It’s unpresidential. Journalists, however, are not presidents.
James E Powell
@Doug R:
I’m not scared of any words, I just know that one won’t win elections.
J R in WV
Hell, Interstate highways are socialism, except for the few with toll booths! Built in the beginning by President Ike…
cintibud
Maybe it might be useful if Biden pointed out that it’s the GOP that is calling any type of government aid “Socialism”, even pointing out that some GOP pols regularly vote against disaster aid to other states in the name of “creeping socialism” without naming any names, as is his style
Matt McIrvin
@Citizen Alan: I was just watching a video by Hank Green where he was talking about the “solar roads” Kickstarter thing that was all the rage several years ago, and not so much the many problems with this proposal as the reasons why people found it so appealing.
And he pointed out that there’s a tendency for non-experts in a field to want to solve EVERYTHING immediately with one fix, but that this tends to make experts automatically suspicious, because the world is complicated and that doesn’t happen. These solar roads were supposed to fill all our energy needs, fix climate change, automatically clear themselves of snow with internal heaters, function as road signs with automatic light-up markers, they did damn near everything. And that made them both appealing and suspicious.
And then, in the comments to the video, you had these people going “Yeah, that was silly… Let’s just build lots and lots of nuclear plants instead, THAT will fix everything!” or “No, the solution is that we just need to ban cars, THAT will fix everything!” Yeah, just do these things overnight. It’s like they weren’t listening. Even if the nucleus of the idea they had was maybe a good one.
WaterGirl
Time change: from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm
TheFlipPsyd
Might be a dead thread, but since it is/was an open thread, I just wanted to recommend Olbermann’s podcasts. I know he is not everyone’s cup of tea — the hyperbole can be over the top. I have to admit that while I used to love his special comments, it isn’t the same anymore. I think because the other side is so angry and only expresses anger towards anyone that doesn’t agree with them, the special comments just drain me. I’m already exhausted from all the chaos and bad and angry feeling in life today.
However, when he is telling a story, he is fun to listen to. He ends the podcast with a story about the “things I promised not to tell.” They are fun and funny — I usually end up laughing by the end of them. Anyway, today apparently is the anniversary of his being adopted by a dog for the first time. It’s a really cute story and he is quite the dog/animal lover. As fellow animal lovers, I thought everyone would appreciate the story. He is very passionate about animals.
Matt McIrvin
My attitude toward market capitalism and socialism generally is, they’re technologies–like nuclear power or integrated circuits–and they’re better for some things than for others, they have advantages and drawbacks and externalities, and turning them into God or the Devil is a mistake. Capitalism seems to be really good at churning out amazing consumer goods… but it’s heedless of worker exploitation or the environment while it does so, so you need strict controls for that. But it just plain sucks at provisioning health care, seems like you actually want something more like socialism for that. Even aggressive capitalists usually love their socialized highways. And so on.
Shalimar
@TaMara: I’m not blaming anyone. A lot of this is experience, and southwest Florida doesn’t have much. But, all of us had more than a day’s notice even if we weren’t on the projected path.
I live in the Panhandle. I was never more than barely inside the western edge of the cone. I still was watching late last week to see if it would be big enough to threaten my family’s condo, and had emergency shopping done and everything except the pets packed to leave by 8am Sunday just in case. It would have taken less than an hour after that to evacuate if it had changed direction.
It’s Florida. You have to prepare ahead so you aren’t caught out at the last minute with nowhere to go.
zhena gogolia
@Matt McIrvin: Good comment.
ETA: When you’ve lived in the socialist version for a while, you see the upside of capitalism. But the downsides are pretty bad!
Gvg
@TaMara: yeah, people who don’t live in a hurricane zone and have never planned an evacuation don’t understand you can’t “just go” a lot of times. Look at the map first. A hurricane hits a coast. That means at least half the directions of away are ocean not roads. It’s usually coming from one direction, so you need to head in the other, that means maybe 1/4 of the compass is away, how many major roads are there that can handle millions of cars all going the same direction? Any accidents cause traffic jams, and people get caught in the open in their cars which is worse in most cases. Now add in that hurricanes change tracks and a different city with millions of population is now the target but has to evacuate on probably the same already packed interstate roads and the gas stations by that time may be out of gas. And the news stories locally will tell us that.
Florida is a peninsula. That means we have 2 coasts to get hit from and it’s like a funnel with traffic out of Florida. I think there was one hurricane that the track forecast actually switched which coast it was going to hit which caused a lot of evacuation problems.
The best solution is not to need to evacuate. Don’t live on barrier Islands, or trailers or too near the beach. Live in well built homes. The fewer that have to evacuate, the better it goes. There are some comfortable people who leave because they don’t want to put up with power outages and they go early. That works too. But some are in the path. This hurricane changed course. Honestly they almost always do. It was too late. And the roads were already full. That means it is slow to get out. You can’t will people out of your way.
Florida passed laws after 2004, our shelters at least some of them take pets.
Shalimar
@WaterGirl: There are shelters all over to evacuate to. Safer structures, relatively higher ground, with a group of people around you so you are a priority if anything unforseen happens. It is rare that you hear about major damage to places that are being used as shelters. The important thing is to get away from the coast. Away from the water surge. Even a few miles can be a huge difference
edit: For example, I live on a narrow peninsula. If I had to evacuate to a shelter, I would choose at least 30 minutes north to the county seat. Nothing near me is safe.
catclub
That kitten picture has them rotating the wrong way – for northern hemisphere hurricane and tornados.
herding cats is hard.
Cameron
Have come far too late to participate in the Great Capitalist-Socialist Wankfest. Can everybody agree that “when they go low, we go home?”
WaterGirl
Biden speaking now!
WaterGirl
@Gvg: I started to feel anxious just reading your first paragraph.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: British climate scientist Myles Allen gives a very good overview of the challenge of combating climate change in his article “The Green New Deal: a view from across the Atlantic” in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists February 2019. Worldwide emissions of carbon are at about 44 gigatons, and we need to reduce emissions 2 gigatons a year, year over year, to achieve a carbon neutral world economy by 2050. That is the goal set out in the UN IPPC report released Octobe, 2018.
That’s achievable, Allen says, and about as fast as we can go without “turning off the lights.” I think by that he means without causing economic disruption that would hurt people in developed countries, and hurt those in less developed countries even worse.
Allen worked on the IPCC panel’s study, and I think their report is a pragmatic document that picked an achievable goal and gave a clear date to attain it by. Myles Allen’s article does not explicitly criticize the Markey/Ocasio-Cortez Green New Deal legislation that was introduced and rejected later that Spring. They called for the US to make a crash, World War II-type effort to make our economy carbon neutral by 2030.
But there is an implicit criticism in his article: this is a marathon, and not a sprint.
TaMara
@WaterGirl: Ageed. I saw a story about one woman who went to Ft Myers to stay with family, evacuating from Tampa, and then when they needed to evacuate from FTM, they couldn’t find gas. Just so many things can go on for people to get stuck.
TaMara
@Gvg: I’m literally researching steel frame modular homes – just looking ahead to more fires, more severe weather…
marklar
@Citizen Alan: When they go low, let the floodwaters go high.
The Moar You Know
@TaMara: I learned my lesson after the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989; I never have less than a half tank of gas in the car and two weeks worth of water in the back of said car (expanded in recent years to two weeks worth of dog food in the back as well). My wife makes fun of me for that, but I’ve lived it once and once is all it took.
trollhattan
@The Moar You Know: Gas tank and phone charge status are items I always tend to. Just how I’m wired.
Cannot understand folks who “forget to check” their gas gauge and conveniently run out somewhere–spouse’s car yells at her and displays nearby stations at about 50 miles left.
rikyrah
COVID is still with us (@c_nephobe) tweeted at 7:17 AM on Fri, Sep 30, 2022:
Senator Rick Scott (R, FL) has voted “No” on hurricane relief for his own state.
This is the same guy who wants to end Social Security. He doesn’t care about the people of Florida.
(https://twitter.com/c_nephobe/status/1575822193287577601?t=sIR5rcOukgSjE0spgS3ZPw&s=03)
rikyrah
Michael Shepherd (@mchlshepherd) tweeted at 8:26 PM on Wed, Sep 28, 2022:
I was moving something heavy up stairs and an older woman says she wished she could help. I said she could give me moral support. She says…
“You can do it!
Your parents should be proud of you!
Your kids seem genuinely happy!
You’re probably attractive to your generation!”
(https://twitter.com/mchlshepherd/status/1575295856978206720?t=YCXTU_h1sIRypUpeLs96Cg&s=03)
rikyrah
BREXIT
Shashank Joshi (@shashj) tweeted at 4:48 AM on Fri, Sep 30, 2022:
“Significant revisions to UK data indicate that Britain is the only G7 economy that remains smaller than it was before the pandemic, despite an improved performance in the second quarter that diminished fears of recession.” https://t.co/IGGh9ZWs8M https://t.co/2T5Eoz2jTN
(https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1575784584540696577?t=iTP60MP-aH17tAUobVB30g&s=03)
artem1s
@Baud:
how about “the government services your tax money is paying for”? Isn’t this really the issue? that the GQP believes the rich shouldn’t have to pay any taxes and still reap all the benefits of the labor of the Unter Menschen? that we should all just pull our forelocks and bow and scrape when they decide to throw us a bone? There are lots of ways to say this more politely that will resonate with the majority of voters.
kalakal
@Gvg:
Irma did that in 2017. Irma was an absolute monster, Cat 5, 185 mph winds, most powerful Atlantic hurricane ever at that time etc. It was supposed to swing north but kept heading west and was then expected to hit Miami. Millions fled, espescially to Tampa on the west coast. Irma kept going west, when it finally turned it was now targeting Tampa 24 hours away, where all the hotels were jam packed with Miamians and everyone was out of gas, roads jammed as Tampa & Miami tried to flee Tampa at the same time. It was already a high end cat 5, the Gulf was hotter than hell, I remember looking at the tracks and thinking “We’re doomed”. It then jogged about 30 miles East, hit Naples and tracked straight up the middle of the State. It was a Cat 2 by the time it passed us about 30 miles to the east. That 30 miles saved hundreds of lives.
bluefoot
@The Moar You Know:
Same with me. When I lived in SF, always at least half a tank of gas, a couple hundred dollars in cash, a couple of gallons of water and a blanket in the car at all times. Back then I had a lot of friends who didn’t have cars, so those of use who did had “evacuation pick up” routes – who we would need to pick up where to make sure everyone could get out.
Gravenstone
More succinct.