Like the sun coming up in the east and setting in the west, you can count on it. Every year. Every dagnab, doggone, dadgum year (as they say down there where these hurricanes happen). Some are just bigger than others, but they all cause damage.
The highest point in the Bahamas is around 40 feet above sea level, but most of the inhabitants live around 5 feet about sea level. The photos of the devastation from the wind and storm surge on the western islands reveals almost complete destruction of anything man made. And most of the trees, too.
Everybody who has lived in U.S. hurricane prone areas for 10 years or so knows about these hurricanes - they've lived through them (or many of them have lived through them). And yet when hurricanes rise up and wipe out their mobile home, there they are; standing there in front of the camera, stained wife-beater T-shirt proudly displayed, tears in their eyes wondering how such a thing could happen. And then the Governor declares the place an emergency, FEMA swoops in and hands out free goodies, and everybody gets free stuff.
Who pays for all this free stuff and rebuilding going on in known flood areas and hurricane alleys? The rest of us do, those who don't build with the intent on getting wiped out. We cough up in tax payer dollars and increased insurance premiums for these idiots who get reimbursed by all the common sense folks out there who don't put themselves in harms way on purpose.
Why do we put up with this, year in and year out? And why, when the gambler stumbles out of the casino dead broke, after having put up his life savings on black at the roulette table and it came up green, do we not dip into our pockets and bail this poor wretch out?
And why, when the sky diver's widow appears on TV, crying for the recent loss of her hubby whose chute didn't open, don't we just pay off all her debts and retire her mortgage and pay for all her kid's college tuition?
And how about all of those dopes who build their houses in New Orleans - BELOW SEA LEVEL - and then the inevitable flood comes into town, destroying everything there. Are we still bailing out those dopes?
Apparently we are. When will we ever stop enabling these fools who knowingly put themselves in peril, always expecting more sensible folk to come to their rescue?
Probably never. Sigh.
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