Hurricanes Are A Great Time For A Geography Lesson

Our home in Tallahassee is 500 miles from Miami

Whenever Florida makes the news - people from back home in Pennsylvania always call to see if we are okay. Many of the times we are sitting out on the porch or just enjoying the warm sunny weather. Our callers are flabbergasted when they find out that we are not near the action in Miami or Orlando.

It is 500 miles from our house to the city of Miami - the city of our elopement in 1971. When people fly to Disneyworld - friends think we live just outside the gate to the Magic Kingdom. The Palma Maria restaurant is about 250 miles from our house - about the same drive as from Tamaqua to Pittsburgh. But many times we have driven the distance to have supper with visitors.

Irma is so far away from us - that we will attend an FSU football game at noon on Saturday before the storm even gets to hit Miami. I am not making fun of this storm - all hurricanes are bad - and Irma is looking to be the worst ever. I am guessing that Irma will hit Miami dead center on Sunday. Our friend Doris and others who struggled through Andrew 25 years ago will get it again. If Irma is traveling 10 MPH from Miami - and were coming straight at us - it would take 50 hours to reach us.

Don't get me wrong - Irma could skirt Miami around the west and come up and hit Tallahassee with 150 MPH winds. But that is not likely. First of all - Tallahassee is not on the coast. We are 40 miles inland and 200 feet above sea level. That means the storm would lose some power crossing over land.

In Tallahassee - most of the destruction is caused by trees falling. People here worship - pines and oaks - like they are cows in India. If you decide to cut a few down in YOUR yard - THEY have a seance. Then when the ground gets soft during a storm and the wind pushes the trees onto their homes or power lines - they act surprised. Doing the same thing over and over again - and expecting different results - what do they call that?

Since 1992 - Florida has changed the building codes dramatically. What used to be acceptable building standards are now jokes. For our new home we used 2 x 6's as studs - 3/4 inch plywood as sheeting. There are steel straps hidden all over. We built the home well above grade. The property was contoured to drain away from the home. We removed 15 pines trees - each about 100 feet tall. Many homes in our neighborhood have experienced giant pine trees in their bedrooms in the middle of the night. According to the law - if the neighbor's tree falls on your house - it is your problem.

We have been given plenty of time to react to this coming train wreck. We are watching constantly. Thanks to science - we know what is coming. As Kennedy said - "on earth God's work must truly be our own."