You Can’t Sell Shamwows and Mighty Putty with Logic and Restraint

Another day, another Cone of Certain Death. The TV liars are brushing off their hyperbole and practicing pretending it’s hard to stand in 20-mph breezes. Anderson Cooper has a team out, looking for a deceptively-deep ditch for him to stand in.

Tropical Storm Helene is on its way up the Gulf, and it’s supposed to make its closest approach to me late Thursday night. So far, it’s not looking bad. The cone’s projected center is about 180 miles off at that time, and it would take a pretty horrendous storm to generate serious winds here from that distance.

Having butchered every big oak close to my house and shop, and currently living in what resembles a lunar landscape, I think I have little to fear. The juice could go off for a couple of days, and we could lose some trees far from the house, but the odds of anything big hitting anything important are vanishingly small.

My yard is not what it used to be. I obliterated a lot of the shade. But I had no choice. The trees were too close to the house, and they were also dying because they were worthless types of oaks that rot standing up. They looked nice and provided shade while the original owners’ kids were growing up here, but by the time I arrived, they were over the hill and could not be permitted to remain in place.

We went to Europe, which killed about three weeks. I’m still a little lightheaded from coronavirus, so I don’t feel like working in the heat just yet. A storm will be here shortly. All these things add up to an October start on fixing the yard, at the earliest.

This is about what I planned on anyway. I decided I wanted to rent an excavator for about a week and yank all the oak stumps, but I didn’t want to work in the summer heat.

If the storm knocks stuff over in my county, I may be delayed yet longer, because renting an excavator will become impossible. Everyone will want one.

Nothing can be done. You do what you can, and you relax. If I have to wait for November or December, the world will keep turning.

Choosing to cut the trees was a pretty mature decision, because the shade was really nice, and they made the property look better. I could have left them alone for a couple more years. But I would have been sweating every time a storm went by.

Yes, I have insurance, but that doesn’t mean letting trees fall on my house would be intelligent. I have a deductible, it takes time to fix things even when someone else pays, contractors are the lowest form of life not known to wear suicide vests, and some things can’t be replaced.

The sensation of NOT worrying about an approaching hurricane is hard to get used to. Florida residents get used to sweating bullets every year, over and over.

Other people are not as blessed as I. As I saw a meteorologist point out today, late-season storms tend to be wider, so this one could bring high winds and a lot of storm surge to a long stretch of coast.

Once again, homeowners will be playing developer roulette. “Did my developer care enough to put my house above the storm surge”? “Is the drainage up to par?” “Will my roof fly off?”

After the last storm, we saw a familiar site. Devastated neighborhoods right next to neighborhoods where things weren’t too bad. Some developers put homes on raised lots. Some didn’t. Some homes were built better than others. Many homebuyers didn’t do their homework. They didn’t check to see if they were in floodplains. They didn’t think about storm surge or construction quality. We saw videos of houses where the water was a couple of feet deep in the living rooms.

My house is around a hundred feet above sea level, in a place that has never seen hurricane winds, on a lot the government says can’t flood. Before my dad bought it, I made sure it was not in a floodplain. It’s also a couple feet above the the lot itself.

It’s surprising how few people make any effort to vet Florida homes for hurricane safety before buying them. It doesn’t take much time, and it saves people from disaster, literally. If it looks pretty and the price seems right, they jump in, and realtors and sellers smile quietly and take their money. It’s not fraud. You’re supposed to look after yourself and do your due diligence.

It’s sad. You can throw away your life savings so easily, and it’s not necessary.

I always expect life to bite me in the rear end, because it does, so I was very careful. I did my best.

Not many people would defoliate half of their beautiful yards like I did. I feel like a beautiful actress who got a prophylactic mastectomy.

I’m used to being concerned about myself and my dad. I’m sorry to say I didn’t think that much about people in other areas in the past. I was too disturbed by the thought of what could happen to me. Now I am making an effort to think about others and pray for them. This storm will probably be a horror for a lot of people who didn’t prepare.

If you decide to move to Florida, think first. You can avoid nearly all storm problems by staying off the coasts. Apartments are nothing like as problematic as houses. Trees near houses look nice, but they fall over. Concrete is better than wood. You can check and avoid floodplains. You can check and make sure your house is built well and not too low to the ground. You need a roof that will stay on; steel is the way to go. A whole-house generator is a big blessing. Find out about insurance costs before you buy, not after.

Do things right, and you will be at peace while your neighbors are living in hotels at night and guarding against looters during the day.

If you don’t look out for yourself, do the rest of us a favor, and don’t blame the government like the folks in the video below. Believe it or not, the government can’t control hurricanes.