Heavy Flo day

Florence looks to have weakened a bit today in terms of wind speed but, as we all know very well, the Saffir-Simpson scale doesn't tell you everything you need to know about how dangerous a hurricane is. When you're making your decisions about what kind of precautions you need to take, you will also want to know how fast the storm is moving, what direction it is coming from, how big a surge it might be pushing. Also how big is it?

Florence is a huge hurricane, the hurricane center said, and its hurricane-force winds extend about 80 miles from the storm's center. The diameter of Florence's tropical-storm-force winds is almost 400 miles.  

Because of its size, "life-threatening storm surge, heavy rainfall and damaging wind will cover a large area regardless of exactly where the center of Florence moves," the hurricane center said.

So it's true, this is a "tremendously big, tremendously wet" storm.  If you are sheltering in place, you will need a lot of paper towels.  Also, it's okay if that is your plan.

Hurricane prep comes with a lot more political horseshit than it used to. Mayors, Governors, Presidents, seem to spend as much time worrying about the "optics" of their communications and orders than they do their actual usefulness to people.  There is also a tendency among the press and just the public at large on social media to do a lot of performative scolding about evacuation. Leave or "you're on your own," they say. The message is supposed to be about public safety but it's really as much a precautionary blaming of the potential victim as it is anything else. This way at least some of us caught in the inevitable mess failures that accompany any storm will have "deserved it."

Everyone has very specific circumstances to consider when deciding whether or not they are going to evacuate before a hurricane.  There are plenty of very good reasons for some people not to leave.  Sometimes evacuation can be more dangerous than staying. It's almost always very expensive. Some people have the means to get out. Some people have a place lined up they can go.  Not everyone does. What's right for one person may not be right for someone two doors down. This is why blanket evacuation orders don't make sense for anyone but the politician who issues them.

And really, if worst comes to worst for those politicians, they can always just lie about it.