Hurricane Florence and NC stupidity

[Cheerful Charlie]

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entr...urricane-florence_us_5b985a87e4b0162f4731da0e

...
In 2012, North Carolina legislators passed a bill that barred policymakers and developers from using up-to-date climate science to plan for rising sea levels on the state’s coast. Now Hurricane Florence threatens to cause a devastating storm surge that could put thousands of lives in danger and cost the state billions of dollars worth of damage.
...
But in North Carolina, lawmakers chose to ignore the threats. A panel of scientists on the state Coastal Resources Commission issued a dire warning in March 2010, estimating that the sea levels along the state’s coast would rise 39 inches over the next century. Conservative lawmakers and business interest groups feared the report would hurt lucrative real estate development on the state’s coast and sought to undermine it. A lobbying group committed to economic development on the coast accused the panel of “pulling data out of their hip pocket.”

Conservative state Rep. Pat McElraft, whose top campaign contributors were the North Carolina Association of Realtors and the North Carolina Home Builders’ Association, drafted a bill in response that rejected the panel’s predictions.
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So, keep building on those beaches and hope for the best. because, money! Money! Money!



2 more days until this hurricane hits, and pat Robertson can't save them.

 

[phands]

South Carolina won’t evacuate a prison in Hurricane Florence’s path

South Carolina isn't much better.......

With Hurricane Florence looming, South Carolina officials this week ordered evacuations in parts of the state, including Dorchester County. But some people are being left behind — specifically, at least 650 prison inmates at MacDougall Correctional Institution.


South Carolina Department of Corrections spokesperson Dexter Lee told Vice News, “Previously, it’s been safer to stay in place with the inmates rather than move to another location.”


Another prison in Jasper County, the Ridgeland Correctional Institution, was also not being evacuated despite an evacuation order in the region, according to the State, a South Carolina newspaper. But the evacuation order for the county was later lifted due to changes in the hurricane forecast, mitigating concerns about leaving inmates in the prison.


The National Hurricane Center has said that Hurricane Florence, which is currently expected to make landfall on Friday, could be “life-threatening.” In his response, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster claimed at a news conference, “We’re not going to gamble with the lives of the people of South Carolina. Not a one.”


But South Carolina has not evacuated prisons in response to hurricanes since 1999, the Post and Courier reported last year. A prison spokesperson told the Post and Courier at the time, “In most cases, it is safer for the public, officers, and inmates for a SCDC facility to hold in place rather than transfer and hold in a secondary location.”


Meanwhile, Virginia and North Carolina, also in the storm’s path, have evacuated some inmates in state prisons as Hurricane Florence approaches. But some local jails in Virginia are leaving inmates in place.


Prison evacuations can be very expensive, and they create risks of inmates escaping. But not evacuating leads to its own major risks — making conditions that can already be bad in prisons even worse. As Tess Owen reported for Vice:


Inmates left behind at a federal prison near Houston following Hurricane Harvey in August 2017 reported food shortages, no drinking water, and sewage flooding. Many inmates weathered the storm still locked in their cells. And as Puerto Rico reeled in the devastated aftermath of Hurricane Maria, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons began evacuating inmates from its easternmost facility in Rio Grande due to sustained power outages. During the chaos of the relocation process after the hurricane, 13 inmates escaped.


The news of no evacuation at South Carolina’s prisons comes on the heels of nationwide strikes and protests by inmates to demand an end to forced prison labor and frequently inhumane conditions in US prisons.


Those protests actually began in response to reported problems in South Carolina prisons. Earlier this year, a prison riot at South Carolina’s Lee Correctional Institution was dubbed a “mass casualty event” by state officials after seven inmates were killed and at least 17 others were injured. According to the Associated Press, it was the worst prison riot in a quarter-century.

https://www.vox.com/2018/9/12/17850586/hurricane-florence-south-carolina-prison-evacuation

 

[whollygoats]

"So....Have I got some beachfront property for you!"