Having lived in that area where the hurricane hit the hardest, I also find it difficult to understand any lack of preparation. That includes basic knowledge. They would not have needed to go 200 miles to reach a safer area, 20-50 miles inland would increase their safety dramatically. It was an unusually strong and fast storm, but preparation is (or should be) done before they even identify a storm.

I experienced a strong hurricane in that area when I was a teenager, and my parents made bad decisions and were not prepared. We barely made it out alive. I know how many people think (or do not think), and there is little excuse for not getting off of the beach and inland a few miles. Not to mention having basic necessities like water and non-perishable food.

I stand by my assertion - and not that I am defending people who actually are able to prepare or leave, but choose not to, then run into trouble.

However there are a lot of people who simply do not have the financial nor perhaps the logistical means to prepare or get out of harms way. This includes the elderly, those with health problems, the disabled etc.

This has studied and proven many times over and is nothing new to this century nor the USA.

Teslin, this is where the community works together and helps those who can't take care of themselves. This is something I do every year and every storm (hurricane, ice, snow, tornadoes). Whether it is a neighborhood, a church, a Scout troop; someone knows these people and should help them. These people should be provided information on where they can reach out to when in need of assistance.

We check on these people and help with information, education and resources. We ensure they have what they need or a place to go if it becomes necessary. They are still responsible for themselves, but they have help when it is needed. We take it upon ourselves to take on the responsibility and make sure it happens. And we do work with shelters who take care of the homeless. There are many reasons for someone to fall through the cracks and not get help, but no excuses for it.

There is never a GOOD reason for someone to not get to safety or the basic necessities.

Thanks for the much better summation of a very complex issue - which arises in just about every disaster. Unfortunately not every one gets the help they need - especially those whom I mentioned in my last post and that was the point I was trying (not so clearly) to make.

I suppose lots of folks there live pretty close to the bone. In communities where poverty is rampant (eg some parts of Louisiana) there might not be resources available to everyone who needs it. Certainly this is one reason humans invented civilization but it doesn't always work as well as it should.

...A week of food and water is often for after the event...

In addition to the short timeframe from tropical storm to impact, keep in mind the news just got finished hyping Florence up significantly only to have it end up petering out near the end, as well as the fire they came under for (apparently) exaggerating the effects of what did make landfall.

This, IMO, contributed to what I can only describe as a mild burnout phenomenon where they're hesitant to jump right into another, similar, story.

Meanwhile, Maria was one of the deadliest, worst handled natural disasters in recent history, rivaling Katrina, and the media coverage is incredibly thin.

Florida's residents have generally experienced these things before -- the storm ended up being unexpectedly strong this time.

The important thing is that lessons are learned (sometimes the hard way) and hopefully it will remain fresh enough in the minds of the future generation that they don't have to relearn it over again.

One problem is that people sometimes learn the wrong lessons, or draw the wrong conclusions after a storm. Normalcy bias also leads people to discount the possibility of a bad storm, but patterns of not so bad ones make them expect that and not consider what is possible.

Burncycle, while Florence became weaker as it crossed the coast in terms of wind speed, the slow forward progress and copious rainfall brought the bad flooding that a faster storm would not have. I think they need a new paradigm for classifying hurricanes that includes all possible effects, not just wind speed.

https://weather.com/safety/hurricane/news/hurricanes-tropical-storms-us-deaths-surge-flooding

Most deaths attributed to hurricanes are due to flooding and storm surge, not the effects of wind...

It is simplistic to evaluate solely on the basis of wind velocity. Total rainfall and related flooding are more important.

It strikes me as a relative outsider that the US needs another metric to describe the power of a hurricane describing the possible future outcome not the current windspeed.

Perhaps its current energy impulse measured in Terawatts, although that is a bit opaque for many people. I doubt the US would warm to the use of 'Hiroshimas' as used in the UK to describe lots of energy.

I notice the news uses Katrina as a yardstick on occasion i.e. 'this hurricane will be less powerful than hurricane Katrina but will last longer' so perhaps that could be used as a reference 'the hurricane will make landfall tomorrow with 70% the destruction of a "Kat".

Perhaps not.