they can only try to predict where it is headed by what has happened in the past and I think anyone who has been affected by a hurricane knows how unpredictable the storms can be so I doubt too many in adjoining states ignore it.
Don't misunderstand me - my complaint isn't with the meteorologists and uncertainty in the storms - it's with the story spinning sensationalist media's reporting interests.
As far as tye attitudes of people who live nearby... at least in my experience living on the gulf coast prior to my time in atlanta, and more recently the georgia coast, i think you'd maybe be surprised.
The two problems there are that first off population growth rates in these areas has been staggering - oftentimes people who havent lived through a serious major storm themselves. So you might have 5000 storm "veterans" for every 30,000 or more storm "virgins".
Then you add to it how so many people get de-sensitized by the false alarms, by the "it wasn't so bad last time"... its a pretty big disruption to life to go through the motions so, while you like to think anyone remotely nearby would be hyper vigilant, the reality is that once you live under that threat year in and out and have been through it a few times... well, there's a significant number of people who look for excuses to procrastinate.
A given area only has so many "resources" to spare. So, when you overhype one area in an effort to grab ratings, what do you think happens? Bottling plants only make so much water, only so many generators, batteries, etc are in warehouses to distribute. When 98% of all the stories are premature and you flood all these supplies into an area, and you hype a hysteria that purchases and distributes them, you've got a lot less to go around for the place that actually NEEDS it.
Every one of those Miami families that fled early took up hotels, campground slots, bought up supplies just to hunker through a couple showers. Now, when people legitimately NEED to get out of actual harms way... theyre S outta luck. Same thing happened about a year ago, people out of Florida took up all the hotels and inland safety areas and there were people who wouldve liked to evacuate the low country/coastal empire areas of the Carolinas and Georgia that were forced to weather in place in danger. Luckily not me, my time in New Orleans that I moved away from (about 4 years after getting a new place post Katrina) but many I knew.
Sorry for the long winded ness but something of a sore subject for me. I've seen too many people grow stubborn until it was too late to leave, and too many misled by irresponsible reporting as I said. There's no excuse to keep harping on about an area with a lower likely hood of significant danger (but more people) to seek ratings and neglect shifting to the areas of higher need/danger. I'll go chop up the soap box now.
