I Nominate for the 2008 Darwin Awards

[furrbear]

I Nominate for the 2008 Darwin Awards the idiots who stayed on Galveston Island and are NOW (00:40 CT) calling asking for rescue.

According to CNN, authorities are getting "MANY" calls in Galveston from people seeking to be rescued.

The National Weather Service (NWS) issued an unprecedented hurricane warning for those in the path of Hurricane Ike in the Galveston area: If you stay, you die. The statement, entitled “Life Threatening Inundation Likely! reads, in part, “Persons not heeding evacuation orders [on Galveston Island] in single family one or two-story homes will face certain death.”

How much plainer could it be? What part of "Certain Death" did they not understand?

As I told Mom @ Dinner... any time a weather forecaster gives you a 100% certain warning, You better f**king pay attention.

I guess they thought they could ride out a Cat 2, never mind the "stronger storm than Katrina" warnings. As another CNN person was saying 'many of these people are staying to protect their property, but if there's a 15 foot wall of water on your stuff, there isn't anything left to protect. And it's very possible you're going to lose your life.'.

Yup.

Comments

[allanh.livejournal.com]

I woulda grabbed Randy, the laptop, the tortoises, the mortgage and insurance papers, my meds and travel CPAP, and gotten the fuck OUT of there at the first media warning, myself.

Fools.

[furrbear.livejournal.com]

Birth certificates, passports, powers of atty, wills, household inventory,...

[allanh.livejournal.com]

Etc. Yeah. All of that ... BECAUSE WE'D HAVE ENOUGH TIME BY HEEDING THE EARLY WARNINGS.

I say it again, my voice dripping with as much derision as I can squeeze into a keyboarded word: "Fools."

[furrbear.livejournal.com]

Dave said dialysis was packed Thursday with evacuees from Houston and the coast.

[allanh.livejournal.com]

Oh ... please tell him that I said again that he's adorable. I'm perving on him from here. :)

[furrbear.livejournal.com]

Old pic. Costa Mesa apt ca 2000. (In the full size, you get to read a bunch of my books' titles.)

ESRD has sucked a lot of weight off and aged him.

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

I would have walked calmly out the door and picked up my God Forbid bag on the way out.

My bag's already packed. Has been for the last fifteen years. Only needed it twice, but it's proven to be a very useful habit.

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

Yeah. We in California don't have the luxury of warnings about earthquakes; if we did, I'd be packing up the car at the first evac warning.

[furrbear.livejournal.com]

This is actually a venue where I think earthquakes are preferable. They only last a small fraction of the time these winds and storm surge do.

(And yes, I know earthquakes. CA native SFO & LA/OC.)

[s2dbaker.livejournal.com]

Let this be your warning. California is going to have a major earthquake. You've been warned :)

[furrbear.livejournal.com]

If you can tell us when and what magnitude, would you also pick the Irish Sweepstakes and PowerBall numbers for us?

Heard this on NPR...don't you just love NPR?

[beartech420.livejournal.com]

I don't know which official said it or which storm this season it was but the announcement was something like this.

"If your not planning to evacuate, please write your social security number on your arm with a permanent marker so we can ID your body after the storm, thank you."

Polite, Persuasive and Cogent the announcement has everything!

BestRegards,
Pete

[varsitynj.livejournal.com]

I love that logic "I gotta protect my property"

From what, martians?

Yeah you would think after they saw how helpful our government was to Katrina victims (many of whom didn't have the resources to get out when they wanted to) these people would have been out of Dodge.

Personally if I lived in a place that it would be in an Airstream trailer that I could tote on out of there at the first sign of trouble. I might have a building on the property too but it would not contain anything valuable when I wasn't there.

I love Ron White's logic on this. He told a story about a guy who chained himself to a tree to ride out a storm and prove how physically fit he was at age 50.

"It's not THAT the wind is blowin'... it's WHAT the wind is blowin'. If you get hit by, say, a Volvo, it ain't gonna matter how many situps you did that morning."

[hwynym.livejournal.com]

Ever since I read "Isaac's Storm", about the No-Name Hurricane that practically levelled Galveston 108 years ago and killed thousands of people...well, Galveston is the LAST place I'd want to be.

[ursusarctos.livejournal.com]

Stupid is as stupid does. :D
I guess this would qualify as TX sized stupid.....

[bookish-cub.livejournal.com]

I read in snowboardjoe's journal that people stayed because they thought God would protect them. I guess that didn't work out so well for them.

[furrbear.livejournal.com]

The western end of the island is still underwater.

Belo's all news cable channel (TXCN - Texas Cable News) has been covering the area and the damage non-stop. For those who did stay on the island, there is now no power, no water, and no food. They are being bussed to San Antonio and Austin. My mom's church here in Arlington took in about 150. For those that did leave, the mayor has said, "Don't come back." It may be weeks before essential utilities are restored on the island.

I did see reports of some areas around Houston starting to get electricity restored.

Oh look!!! New piccy of Erich. Woofy. I like.