Sorry for the long addition to your post, Mike.

Has it been THAT long already this year? I still remember how, as we all started watching, the levees began to break in Katrina. But it was impossible, right? That many things couldn't fail! They'd turn up every single pump, get some excavators and patch up the broken levees. Just turn everything up to 10 out of 10, and in a couple of weeks, everything will repair itself. I didn't understand what those horrified eyes meant.

And then it sunk in and I felt the helpless dread at how N/O was going to fill all the way up like a bathtub with 38C water. People being helpless and men having to wade through water that was filled with snakes with their pregnant wives and small children on pieces of plywood so that they could manage to get some food (and booze) from any stores that were still open.

Okay. Now, something crucial had just happened: without anything, without 20-30 feet of what we all now know as storm surge. Although we may not have known as well before, (Or it wasn't respected or understood at the time of being so deadly). Places like Gulfport, Mississippi, had essentially disappeared from the map to a degree that they still haven't fully recovered. Just flat concrete pads that had houses on them are still just the pads if the property is too close to the coast.

However, I like to think that we help people who need assistance...from helping someone find a safe Motel 8 all the way to guiding them to another place more suitable for them, such as a shelter or kitchen to help the needy. Perhaps save people's lives with some of our forecasts by offering them alternatives to standing in the wrong place versus moving to safer and higher ground, or perhaps helping people with dead cellphones help get them charged.. I remember people who were so panicked, who couldn't even think about where to go, versus just sitting down in the mud.