• iridaniotter [she/her, they/them]@hexbear.net
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    5 months ago

    I will be pleasantly surprised if they add a Category 6. I figured instead that there’d be a concerted effort to normalize environmental collapse (e.g. using more recent dates as a benchmark instead of pre-industrial)

    • zifnab25 [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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      5 months ago

      In fairness, the Rita evacuation was an absolute shitshow and Harvey had a much lower casualty rate than mass-evacuations in other years.

      Sitting tight through a storm isn’t the worst idea, particularly if you’re in a sturdy facility with backup power like a school or stadium. Trying to pile out of town with another 4M people, particularly in this town, is nightmarish. And getting caught on a road in the middle of a flood/storm is even worse. Nevermind how this just kinda creates a blister in hotel prices and a rash of living-in-car homelessness for the duration and then another giant mess as people pile back into town.

      One might argue that this would encourage my city administrators to invest more aggressively in domestic shelters and other life-saving facilities. But we all know that’s not going to happen. In the meantime, I would not consider evacuation a given as a solution to an incoming storm.

      • viva_la_juche [they/them, any]@hexbear.netOP
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        5 months ago

        Sitting tight through a storm isn’t the worst idea, particularly if you’re in a sturdy facility with backup power like a school or stadium

        Yeah that would be good if we organized stuff like that at a high level but I feel like most of the people I know just ride it out in their trailers or homes and hope they don’t take on water

        One might argue that this would encourage my city administrators to invest more aggressively in domestic shelters and other life-saving facilities

        Lol no for sure, texas’s solution to everything is “you should have had flood insurance”

  • i think it shouldn’t be “category 6” but rather “Category 5X” and then when they have to add another, it’s 5XX. and just keep doing that until we have like get a 5XXXXXXX that stays persistently, for years, over east Texas and we all just agree to call it The Eye of Wrath.

    • Rom [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      5 months ago

      We should develop technology to redirect hurricanes so every time a new one forms we just send it to merge into the 5XXXXXXX superstorm over Texas and let them deal with it

      • edge [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        5 months ago

        You could extrapolate unofficial higher categories. On average the categories are separated by about 20 mph wind speed. So unofficially we could consider anything above 177 mph to be a category 6. There are 8 on record, including one each in 2017 (Irma, 180 mph) and 2019 (Dorian, 185 mph). But there are six hurricanes that all reached a peak of 175 mph, so we could make the limit 174. That would put Katrina (2005) and Maria (2017) in the unofficial category 6.

        But the current proposal is 192 mph for some reason, of which there have been 0 on record. The highest was Allen in 1980 at 190 mph.