Quote:
Originally posted by RocHard
What I don't understand is that these people live in Florida and didn't prepare for it. I'm not talking two weeks ago, I'm talking twenty years ago.
I lived in San Francisco for years. We knew the big one was coming sooner or later, and we prepared for it. When the power went out and the stores closed in 1989 from the big 7.0 quake, I was ready and tons of food stored.
I sat here and watched the roof over the pumps being torn off by wind at a Chevron station. They played this over and over on the news. You mean it didn't occur to anyone when it was build that a hurricane was going to happen?
And why isn't their power lines underground? It's not rocket science.
And the one thing that always cracks me up is everyone boarding up their windows. Did it ever occur to anyone to build metal shutters into their windows? At my Aunt's house in Europe she has metal shutters. At night she from inside the house she rolls them down and locks them from the inside. I would imagine it would be cheaper to have these installed then buying a few hundred bucks of wood every time a hurricane comes to town.
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rockhard all new houses built in Florida are required to have storm shutters and meet the tougher hurricane codes.. such as reinforced garage doors, tie downs on the roof trusses and so on.. Most of the houses damaged are older pre Andrew most of the time.. However nothing will protect your house from flooding or a direct hit.
Far as the power lines go I agree they should all be underground.. but that's not up to us.. the power companies are the ones that would have to float that bill and I don't think they would want to do that.. However most new neighborhoods are underground utilities. The onther issue you have to look at is in some places if you dig down 3 feet you hit water. So a lot of places simply can not have underground utilites.
In reality big hurricanes don't hit here very often, most are in the 60-70mph range or lower by the time they hit.