Kenny,
I owe you an apology. I was just upset with the hype given to this hurricaine compaired to the ones that I have had experience with, starting back in 1960 with Donna. On up through the years, I have been in and involved with,probably a couple of dozen hurricaines.
ANDREW: hit the Miami/Homestead area, a cat-5, real monster. I was in Homestead, Florida the day after it hit. I knew what the needs were gonna be so I loaded up my van with all the ice I could load on it, from Ft Myers, Fla., a three hour drive from Miami/ Homestead.
As I was loading up the ice and preparing to pay for it, the man at the ice house asked me what was I going to do with all that ice? I told him that I was taking it to the hurricaine victems. He
said, "in that case I will only charge you 1/2 price for the ice. I thanked him, paid him and drove off at 3;00 AM arriving there at 6:00 am with my ice. No lights, no power, no business's open. Just total darkess and confusion. At daylight the people began coming out from where ever they spent the night looking for some relief. The odd thing was that the common thread was, every one wanted ice. I have been thru this before and every time they want ice.
In less than an hour all the ice I brought was gone. The next day, Reddy Ice Co., the company that supplies all the 7-11 stores with ice sent an 18 wheeler refrigerated truck down with a load of ice. The driver set up in a parking lot and began selling his ice. He was charging $1.00 per bag. That was less than I paid for the ice that I brought down! He was not gouging.
I saw an amazing thing that day...........the driver was out of ice and a man had just bought the last two bags of ice, whe a lady pushed her baby stroller up and asked to buy a bag of ice. He told her that the man in front of her had just bought the last two bags he had, but that another truck was on it's way. The man who had bought the ice said, "here lady you need this more than me". And he gave her the ice, she offered to pay and the man refused payment.
There are many more stories that I could relate about hurricaine disasters.
My point is that none of the other disasters was reported on in any depth as was this one that barely qualified as a hurricaine, (wind speed has to be 75 MPH to qualify). There was severe rain, and that was bad enough. The part that agravated me was the way the media handled the whole debacle. They were praying for a tragedy! At least FEMA was a little better prepared than they were for Katrina. Still, FEMA is a joke.
What the hell, as usual, a lotta people are gonna make a lotta money off some peoples misfortune and beat their chest as they do it.
Again, sorry Kenny, I was just in a bad mood.