Above The 48th Parallel: Hurricane Vs. Blizzard

Here is my outlook on the issue from where I live, one of the coldest places out there. cold weather doesnt bother me. Blizzards dont bother me. Blizzards do not destroy homes and belongings. If one gets snowed in, all one must do is keep warm and dry, which is fairly easy. having enough winter clothing and supplies to survive is key, and keeping these supplies in your car will make you good to go in an emergency. There is no way to protect your house against a flood or hurricane. just building a fire and waiting a while isnt going to help anything. I dont spend much time bitching about the cold temps and crap up here, because truthfully I kind of like it. It is easy to stay warm with the proper clothing. I have slept in a lean-to shelter in january, It wasnt bad. I would have a hell of a time trying to make it in the heat and devistation down where the hurricanes strike. It is way worse than a little cold or snow. Hell, if you have enough snow and are stranded, you can dig a nice little snow cave and sleep comfortably. This is like a nice winter playground if you ask me. Sorry for the rambling post, but I think that the post about how tough it is in the blizzard was pure BS. I have lived my entire life up here and seen neg 50 F without counting the windchill, but I will gladly take that over hurricanes and tropical heat anytime. My sympathies to anyone who was crapped on by those hurricanes, come on up north where it's safe, lots of room here.:thumbup:
 
I can't add a thing to what Sarge said. That was just spot on truth. It's not about the event. It's about the people. Just because more aid is sent somewhere doesn't mean that your hardship isn't important. It just means that you can probably take care of yourself better than the average bear. Why is that a bad thing? We all know that if the NOLA was filled with Mikes and Andys that the situation would have never gotten any worse. We also know that Johnny North Dakota is not a Munk-man. Storms of any kind, whether they be frozen or wet, are scary. It's how people react that makes the situation worse. Mike lost thousands and thousands of dollars worth of his stuff TWICE as did his neighbors. He is doing fine, is working on beating an old heavy demon, and is one of the regular good guys around here. Heck, we just got smashed with an F2 or F3 tornado right here in my hometown. 23 people lost their lives in a matter of just a few horror filled seconds. Bodies we being discovered for several days. Some in fields several hundred yards away, some in ponds, some were children lying limp under scraps of sheetmetal. Fox, CNN, and MSNBC covered it for a day, got their typical "local" big gal in sweatpants to use bad grammar to sum it up for what it was like having her trailer ripped away around her, and rolled out of town. I think I heard somewhere that the Red Cross needed something like $300,000 to get where they needed to be to clean everything up. In TWO HOURS (basically), all the radio and TV stations had raised $1.2 MILLION in aid from about 140,000 people and businesses. It was bad, it could have been worse, and friends and neighbors would have given even more. Nature is just nature. A storm is a storm. Places get hit, a few people will lose their lives, and it will end. Then it's up to the people that live their whether they want to rebuild or return to the beasts.

Jake
 
And we love you in Minn, Rat Finkenstein.


I don't know Minn, so I won't comment about blizzards there. Got a lot of Rocky Mountains in Minn, Do you?

>>>>>>>>>>>>

Is pain different in Blizzards or Hurricanes? The kind; but not intensity or duration.

I'll bet Norm had no idea this simple thread would become emeshed in passion from various States!

>>>>>>>

I don't think the Social Problems we saw revealed by Hurricane Katrina is solvable by moving North.

It is easy in a small place to be proud of self reliance.
As I've said many times in this thread now, enormous amounts of people carry with them enormous potentials for disasters.

If you wiped out my entire town 50 people would die.

munk
 
munk said:
And we love you in Minn, Rat Finklestein.


I don't know Minn, so I won't comment about blizzards there. Got a lot of Rocky Mountains in Minn, Do you?

>>>>>>>>>>>>

Is pain different in Blizzards or Hurricanes? The kind; but not intensity or duration.

I'll bet Norm had no idea this simple thread would become emeshed in passion from various States!

>>>>>>>

I don't think the Social Problems we saw revealed by Hurricane Katrina is solvable by moving North.

It is easy in a small place to be proud of self reliance.
As I've said many times in this thread now, enormous amounts of people carry with them enormous potentials for disasters.

If you wiped out my entire town 50 people would die.

munk
Click to expand...

The lack of mountains is, IMO the main failing of Minnesota. As it is, I plan to eventually move to mountains, as I love them. Mountains get tons of snow, minnesota gets much less snow, but plenty of cold. Perhaps Alaska is right for me.
I agree that many people in one spot is a problem when it comes to disasters. I personally live in a rural area, so the population density is nil. In a large city there are simply more people, and less natural resources available. I didnt really touch on the social problems in my post because I dont really have an opinion on them. I have never lived in a huge city, but I would wager that any large city would suffer the same fate given the circumstances.

By no means was I trying to trivialize the problems that come with blizzards and cold, just that I consider them to be easier to plan for and survive than something that removes your shelter and destroys your belongings.
 
I've been thinking more on this thread;

we had, 'gee, if you'd just take care of yourselves you'd be alright."
Then it was; 'that's racist and blizzards aren't as bad as hurricanes."
Then; Blizzards arent bad at all.
Then, 'well, yes, in the Rocky Mountain West blizzards can be very serious,'
And now from Minn- 'the blizzard post was BS."

IF I had to fix all this, what would I do?

I don't know. I've said everything already. We have social problems, societal problems not related to disasters but apparent during them. The implication that hurricane survivors aren't doing their part is met with stiff resistance from hurricane survivors- as well it should. IT is overly simplistic to live in a rural setting far removed from city crisis and point a finger. But it is true, that just as in the Desert one carries water, and in the North water, clothes, food and possible heat, so in the South should one always have the means to leave the area when the time comes to leave. If you cannot do this, you are not prepared.

I still think the bottom line has been alluded to by Sarge and others- that loss is loss, and we do what we can.


munk
 
Rat;

I called my gunsmith this afternoon to ask him about Minn. He lived there, grew up there. As you know, there are many former Minnsotians here in Montana. He wasn't home, and I'll call later, but plan on asking him the big difference between Minn winters and here. As you know, for cold, our States are tied yearly; we have Cutbank, and you, if I recall correctly, International Falls or something.

<<<<<<<
By no means was I trying to trivialize the problems that come with blizzards and cold, just that I consider them to be easier to plan for and survive than something that removes your shelter and destroys your belongings>>>>>>>

And here is our common ground. When I lived in the Mojave, I had to have extra water in the truck at all times. Period. In the three Rocky Mountain states, warm clothing and the ability to get out of the wind.

In Southern climes not much happens, but when something does, it is huge.
Perhaps the city lifestyle and comfortable seasons allow persons to grow lax.

If I lived in Hurricane country, I'd have the ability to get out.

Now, the fact remains, we have many people in this country, all over this country but primarily concentrated in the cities, who are ill prepared to make few good decisions at all, be that on sobriety, education, work, or living conditions.

That is an entirely different and depressing thread.

I just realized, we have a rat and a munk talking to one another.

munk
 
munk said:
And now from Minn- 'the blizzard post was BS."

munk
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I am sorry if that offended you. I had no intention of doing so. North Dakota is just like MN, only flat and minus ~13,000 lakes. The winters are the same. Perhaps I should just stop posting, even I dont know what my point is now.
 
Well I see our posts crossed. I get the point you are making. I guess we are on a similar wavelength after all.
 
We are on the same page.

If I had to guess about Minn vs Montana weather wise, I'd say the Rocky Mountains coupled with the plains makes for rapid onset, instability, and intensity not found in Minn. We have the offshore flows from the Coast, the Artic blasts which you get too, but these must interact with the Continental divide and the mountains. This is why in Tornado season they say Wyoming and Montana begin the systems that later level a small town in Kansas.

We get the jetstream frequently in all seasons. Does that happen in Minn, or has it dipped South or turned North by then?

We begin to see serious holes in munks meteolurgy!

I think the unpredictabilty, rapid onset, severity and distance from help are the key factors. These states are very large. To get proper medical attention, I had to drive 400 miles round trip.

Yes, if one is home, one is usually safe. My wife drives 70 miles a day to work.

Last season we ate at a rather famous ranch, the former Matedor. We arrived late afternoon and stayed three hours. By the time we left, the driveway was gone, and the foreman had to blaze a trail to the highway. He knows the ranch, but went off the road. It was a little dicey getting home, but we did OK. IT is only 10 miles to our home.


munk
 
I'd like to thank Munk, Rat, Sarge and Steely. I think in NO you are seeing lots of the unprepared people and very little about the prepared ones. Such is the buisness of the press. That doesn't change the "Manager" fellows words. They sucked. You've got to have the same unprepared people in the north. I'm unwilling to believe that there are no unprepared people up there. There are A-holes everywhere I've ever been. Thats what you are seeing in NO. And don't go believing the Mayor could have gotten them out either. South Louisianna people are as stubborn as the worst mule you've ever known. My dad lived through Camile before I was born. He said he saw a dead cow on top of a telephone pole. Nobody left. This is a completely new phenomenon and there is just no way to get everyone to go. I think he had some fault. No doubt there is plenty to go around. But he couldn't have gotten even 10% of the people that stayed to go. Period. I love Louisianna and the people, culture and food there, but I'm glad to be raising my family in Atlanta even for all its problems.

I've rambled. Evening beers.

Andy
 
I don't think any of you have it has bad as we did when I was a kid in Arkansas.

Never got enough snow to account for anything, just a couple inches of nasty old sleet every couple of years and we figured it was just frozen humidity. Ever try to make a sleet man? Didn't think so.

Texas and Louisiana got the credit for growing mosquitos large enough to lift babys out of their cribs, us poor Arky's grew 'em big enough that they'd lift the cattle out of fields and drop 'em in Texas where their horns would straighten out. Durn Texans would ride 'em, poor old bulls, I mean you ever been unfortuneate enough to be that close to a texan? Women are pretty, enough, but those men will bring a tear to your eyes, and it isn't from any old emotion, just the smell would gag a maggot off a puke wagon at 30 feet!

In the summers air would get so hot they'd have to ban air travel due to all the mirages forming, planes kept flying into lakes at 50K feet, very nasty crashes those.

The Tornado's? Soooie!! i dont' know what you all are talking about. There is a reason that tall buildings aren't built in Arkansas, nothing over 20 stories would survive a season in that state. I remember one tornado when I was a pup, it lifted up a whole forest, 50,000 acres of the tallest loblolly pines any state ever grew, three days later the Ouachita mountains were buried under enough toothpicks that the Diamond company had to declare bankruptcy!

Speaking of mountains you know why the Ouachita's are so puny these days? See back before there were airplanes those mountains were held up by huge reserves of Aluminum ore, well when they started building airplanes and stuff out of all that aluminum they dug those mountains clear down to the stubs they are today, thats why the third finest President that ever hailed from Arkansas created the Nation Part Service! I mean the next thing you know we'll be letting okies into the state!

Maps? The maps are so poor for Arkansas they still say "here be dragons" near the northern most edge. Across the south, where I was growed they say "snakes, bad snakes"...

There is a reason we got such a rap for poor education. The original state of hard to spell names. I grew up near the Ouachita river. You folks would say and spell it like Washita. Camp near us? Abooikpaagun. You'd say That "A bowie pah Goon" See why we can't spell crap?

Speaking of history you know Arkansas was the old west don't you? Judge Roy Bean? Fort Smith? El Paso is a place they make picante sauce. Steaming Poop !

You know that Famous Explorer De Soto only made it to Arkansas and they buried reportedly buried his body in the Mississippi, see it even managed to kill that great explorer.

I'm glad to be in Kentucky these days. Pretty women, reasonable mosquitos, snow, and that damn Ohio River....

By God life is tough along the Ohio...

Can we go back to our regularly schedule Japanese bashing please?
 
45-70 said:
I don't think any of you have it has bad as we did when I was a kid in Arkansas.
Click to expand...

you poorly thing. musta been horrible y'all growin' up with billy clinton, and then they go and sew together hillary from spare bits down at frankie's place! y'all must really need the ol' zombie blades up there in arkin-saw. ;)

lucky they moved out to plague them yankee's up nawth in nooyawk & leave you good ol' boys alone now.
 
kronckew said:
...lucky they moved out to plague them yankee's up nawth in nooyawk & leave you good ol' boys alone now.
Click to expand...

Something like that.
 
Sylvrfalcn said:
We can debate all day long who suffers most and why, but bottom line, there is, and will always be, suffering in this world, and there are, and will always be, people who rise above it.

Sarge
Click to expand...
Amen and well-said. Close the book on this.

Aproy, nice to meet you. Remind me to send you a khukuri next time I have too many.

Jake, many thanks & condolences to your area. Those who lost their loved ones in that tornado will *never* get over it, but the news will forget in a week. We should be lighting smoke for them.

It doesn't take a full-scale diaster to end your world, only a tiny one.

Thanks everyone else for listening. B*tching is highly therapeutic. Like Sarge said, all you can do is rise above it. Not everyone does.

Besides, I saw that movie, "Fargo". Bet no one put anyone else through a wood chipper after a hurricane. Branches, maybe.


Ad Astra
 
Oh Boy! This will teach me to post a thread and then pay no attention to it for a few days. :eek: :(

Should have thought this one through Mike. I blew it for sure. I didn't think of you or the devastation you have gone through or the hardships, or for that matter think about the post much at all. Please accept my apologies for forwarding something without thinking it through. You too Andy.

When I first saw this the only thing that occurred to me was the people looting in NO and solely relying on the Gov't for all help, and I think Munk said and I agree, a third world nation within our own borders, and contrasting that with the self-reliance of the people up North. That was the extent of my limited mental comparison between the two situations.

Of course the situations are not comparable, and someone whose home is floating away in an urban environment has issues that are massive and unimaginable.

I apologize again for generating such heat on what is obviously a very sore spot for so many with my thoughtless post. :foot:

Regards as always,

Norm
 
And posts like the one above Norm, are why this place is unique, and great. :thumbup:
 
The funny thing is Norm hates misunderstanding and goes out of his way to avoid it. He always trys to see the other point of view. And now our own advocate for the misunderstood, the disenfranchised, authored a thread that created Misunderstanding!

Well, who'da thunk? You think we're living yet?



munk
 
Norm,

I accept your apology and no need. I kept my angst focused on Mr. Manager.

I think that you just aren't hearing of the prepared folks in the devastation. The media is where I think the problem lies. Steely said as soon as they got their toothless trailerpaprk interview they were gone from his neck of the woods. The prepared people make for boring news.

Sarge and Munk have had some good level headed, and comforting, things to say and they were right. I feel for people in the wrath of blizzards. Believe me that much cold sounds like a living hell to this southerner. I'd much rather face the winds and floods. My family is pretty far down in Louisianna (Eunice, Lake Charles, Hammond, and some in Port Arthur Texas and on the Mississippi side.) Luckily they were prepared. Our farm in Mississippi is at the very northern tip just south of Memphis, and everyone generally retreats there. They get water from a well, have generators, cellars full of food, 3 freezers and 5 refrigerators (2 full of beer), and Satelite cable. Not to mention livestock, and deer. Its the perfect emergency retreat, and they were safe.

Thanks for the apology, but no hard feelings.

Andy

Hey Ad, where do you hail from. Is there anything I can ship down to you?

Andy
 
munk said:
We are on the same page.

If I had to guess about Minn vs Montana weather wise, I'd say the Rocky Mountains coupled with the plains makes for rapid onset, instability, and intensity not found in Minn. We have the offshore flows from the Coast, the Artic blasts which you get too, but these must interact with the Continental divide and the mountains. This is why in Tornado season they say Wyoming and Montana begin the systems that later level a small town in Kansas.

We get the jetstream frequently in all seasons. Does that happen in Minn, or has it dipped South or turned North by then?

We begin to see serious holes in munks meteolurgy!

I think the unpredictabilty, rapid onset, severity and distance from help are the key factors. These states are very large. To get proper medical attention, I had to drive 400 miles round trip.

Yes, if one is home, one is usually safe. My wife drives 70 miles a day to work.

Last season we ate at a rather famous ranch, the former Matedor. We arrived late afternoon and stayed three hours. By the time we left, the driveway was gone, and the foreman had to blaze a trail to the highway. He knows the ranch, but went off the road. It was a little dicey getting home, but we did OK. IT is only 10 miles to our home.


munk
Click to expand...

I think I have seen maps showing the Jet stream over MN but I could be wrong there. It seems to go around to the south, around the Dakotas and MN.
 
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