Before Hurricane Helene’s landfall last week, the National Weather Service began an all-out blitz to alert emergency planners, first responders and residents across the Southeast that the storm’s heavy rains and high winds could bring disaster hundreds of miles from the coast.
Warnings blared phrases such as “URGENT,” “life threatening” and “catastrophic” describing the impending perils as far inland as the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee. Smartphones buzzed with repeated push alerts of flash floods and dangerous winds. States of emergency were declared from Florida to Virginia. And the weather service reached back to 1916 for a precedent, correctly predicting Helene would rank among the “most significant weather events” the Asheville, North Carolina, area had ever seen.
But the red flags and cataclysmic forecasts weren’t enough to prevent the still-rising death toll. The number has soared to at least 215 across six states. At least 72 of those were in hard-hit Asheville and surrounding Buncombe County from flash floods, mudslides, falling trees, crumbled roads and other calamities.
They literally told people, that decided to stay behind, to write their names on their bodies so their corpses could be identified. How the fuck do you misinterpret that as “its gonna be fine”.
Im sorry for anyone affected by this storm, but honestly fuck you to the people who didnt take it seriously despite knowing about how bad it would be. Now instead of just recovering property, emergency services are forced to pull your mangled body out of the rubble too. That is not a fun job ffs.
These are deep red areas, they were told that COVID was bullsijt and then some people died but not them. They’re told that solar and wind power and electric cars are a scam, They were told that global warming is a scam. So after all this why believe that anything is going to have an effect on you.
The loss of life is horrible. This is maybe, If we’re lucky, The turning point where people actually start to believe warnings again. Of course for the most part, it was only the people in low-lying areas that died. This means there is a equal chance that they’ll just claim it’s another case of them versus us and it was their fault for buying or building that close to water.
Those not having experienced it will brush it off as fake news, a hoax, ai, or anything else just to be sure they aren’t wrong and emperor god daddy trump is bigly supreme.
I feel bad for those who have and continue to suffer because of this. And because of the people who have warped their minds away from reality.