Quote:
Originally Posted by lizardlady
A tropical storm is a thunderstorm on steroids. They kill people and damage property.
I live in an area that was in the crosshairs of FIVE hurricanes in 2004. They caused extensive damage in this area. People lost their homes. My house was damaged enough I ended up having to replace it. Sorry, not my idea of fun.
I will admit many, many years ago I enjoyed thunderstorms too, not tropical storms, plain old thunderstorms. Then I had several near misses with lightening, including watching it hit our power pole outside the house. There were flames shooting out of the box on the pole. It blew out the wiring in the house. Then there was the time lightening hit a pine tree near me. Blew the tree to bits. I stopped thinking thunderstorms were fun.
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The Tampa Bay Area is sitting on a powder keg. In 2004, we had 4 (maybe 5) hurricanes that were
indirect hits. We haven't had a direct hit since 1960. The Florida of 1960 is much different than the Florida of today. Our population is probably 10X greater than the population of 1960, but our roads haven't kept up with our increase in population.
The only good thing about a hurricane (if there is a good thing) is the advanced warning. However, the evacuation routes cannot handle the volume. For example, I'm told to go to the nearest State Road (but that won't work because State Roads have traffic lights on them), drive to an Interstate to either go north on I-75 or Northeast on I-4.
I don't want to come off like Chicken Little, but if a Cat 4 or 5 hurricane directly hits the Tampa Bay Area, we're going to have billions of dollars in property damage, and much more importantly, hundreds (if not thousands) of lives lost.
It's time for the Tampa Bay Area to wake up before it's too late.