So one of the attorneys I work with represents a special district in the Lehigh Acres area. He said he hasn’t heard anything yet, but he imagined it was flooded prettt bad, but said they are far enough inland that it probably wasn’t anything life threatening.
i dont mean this as insultingly as it sounds but do we know floridians are that good at understanding probability?
The general public is awful at probabilities, not just in Florida.
My theory is that many people really only understand two probabilities: 50-50 and 100%/0%. They try to round every thing to the nearest on, so anything that is 80% or more is treated as a sure thing and they flip out if it doesn’t happen.
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The reports ITT of evacuations with no traffic made it clear a lot of people decided to ride it out. I saw someone on TikTok who planned to ride it out in a kayak, expecting 3-9 feet of water upstairs.
IIRC this is a known bias/heuristic where people tend to round unlikely events to 0% probability and round likely events to 100% probability, but I can’t remember its name and google hasn’t helped. Probably a Kahneman and Tversky thing.
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People who have lived there for a long time are used to normal hurricanes that only severely impact a pretty narrow area. They’re not used to behemoth Cat 4/5 storms that push an obscene amount of water in due to their size and massive wind fields. Being at the edge of the cone of probability for a normal old fashioned hurricane wasn’t a big deal, really.
Also, Florida Man doesn’t trust the media, the scientists, or the weatherman, and he certainly doesn’t believe in climate change. So Florida Man is way more likely to try to ride it out.
That said, damn near the entire Gulf Coast is Florida Man territory, even outside of Florida.
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Yeah, as I mentioned earlier, my niece from Cape Coral left in the early morning hours yesterday and made it to my house across the state without major problems. No traffic. Seems clear that a lot of people could have at least gotten out of harm’s way by driving east and just sitting in their cars in a parking lot somewhere if they had no place to go.
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Any word on her husband? It sounded like Cape Coral took a pretty bad hit.
He was okay as of 8am. Cell service is spotty, so she’s worried cause he hasn’t responded since then. But they’ve lost their fence, had some roof damage, trees down, but not flooded. So that’s a blessing.
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Glad to hear he’s ok and the storm surge wasn’t bad near him. They must be near Cape Coral but not actually in it, right? Sounded like it was totally underwater.
They were actually in the evacuation zone “B” but bordering on “C”. So, really should have left. No question. She made the right call. He didn’t imo. But they have a bunch of pets. She only brought one little dog with her, but I would have taken them all in anyway. He fits the Florida man profile.
https://twitter.com/KennyMoralesTV/status/1575506623954550784?t=Bf8UQ-GKUtTY_4hMQabrRA&s=19
https://twitter.com/Mr_JCE/status/1575505912768479233?t=xLbohBOXSc6aVW1Cntc_2A&s=19
https://twitter.com/DylanFedericoWX/status/1575504948292456453?t=-G5bozyFfF1XuKMqNz2wGA&s=19
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Evacuations are a tricky thing. Obv, everyone should heed the mandatory evacuation orders at an absolute bare minimum. But you end up with two different camps of folks that stay to “ride out” a hurricane. The folks that hunker down prepared with their shotguns to protect their daggum property, and old people that really have nowhere to go. The first group is a resource sink but lives, the second group dies.
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Didn’t even mention Chili smh
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I’ve been there.
On NPR just now it sounded like the estimate of hundreds of deaths was walked back. Hopefully it was just a mis-statement and the actual toll will be much lower.
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My understanding is that’s not a residential area, right? Pier, boardwalk, arcades, restaurants, etc?
Apparently the causeway that connects Sanibel Island to the mainland is out, a big section washed away.
All I know about Sanibel Island is that it’s got one of the nicest beaches in the country, and it’s relatively small. Are there a lot of homes there or is it mainly just a spot for tourists and beach goers?