So you think you're going to stay

Originally published Septemeber 14, 2004
To people in the Panhandle and along the coast in Alabama.
So you think you are going to try to tough it out in your house while Ivan comes ashore?
BAD IDEA.
Listen up. When you are in the bath tub with a mattress over your head, the following will happen:

First it will sound like a freight train is running around the corners of your house.

Second there will be loud noises. These are things hitting your house. Tree limbs, trees, neighbor's garbage cans, Spanish barrel roof tiles, any loose pieces of wood become spears that will penetrate the ply wood you put up (if you did). If you did not put up plywood, your window pane will be shattered. Once the "envelope" of the house has been breached, the winds get inside and start to destroy the contents of your house. Walls will begin to fail and the roof will start to come off. The pressure of the wind entering your house will pop the roof off.

Also, after Andrew they found that hurricanes spawn many tornados. Here the most important thing you can ask yourself. If you know now, that a tornado is going to hit your house in a day and a half,would you go inside and stay there?
OF COURSE NOT!!!!
Would you take the responsibility for asking your family members to stay in the path of an oncoming tornado?
The only answer is NO. HELL NO!

Many people wait to evacuate until the skies start to open up and the winds begin to pick up.
THIS IS A MISTAKE. If you wait until then it will be too late, because you can't get far enough fast enough. You are going to get caught on the road and your car will become airborne.

Pets? I'm a pet owner too. Are you will to die for your pet? If you stay that may very well happen.
Evacuate and get out now. Find a shelter that takes pets. Call your vet or local humane society and board your pet and then get you butt to a shelter. I repeat if you can't get out of town -get to a shelter. By no means stay in your house.

My Miami friends have horror stories of trying to keep that "envelope" from being breached by actually trying to hold their front doors shut with the 150 mile an hour storm winds pushing in.

I talk to a lot of people about hurricanes and how they will respond. I ask them -will they stay or will they evacuate?

You can tell in one sentence if people have been through a hurricane before or not. People who waver even one bit- have not been through a hurricane.
People who have don't even miss a beat. Their answer is always I'm getting the hell out. Because riding one out in your house is a white knuckle experience. And it can be deadly.

Please please leave now. They also open shelters in the areas far away from the storm where they know people are going to evacuate. For example shelters on the East coast of Florida open for evacuees to stay when we flee from the West coast. If a storm threatens the East coast, shelters open on the West coast fro evacuees.

Call ahead somewhere out of the path of the storm to locate these shelters, and then go there.

We in Florida are praying for you all tonight.
May God keep you all safe
and then talk some sense into your damn heads if you think you want to stay.

NOW GET THE HELL OUT!!!!!!!!!!