A Stitch in Haste

From the Washington Post:

So many residents in Florida's Panhandle were tired of it Tuesday. Hurricane Ivan had stomped through the region in September, and many homes and businesses here were still wearing blue tarpaulins over their scars from that storm when Dennis roared ashore at 120 mph.

Tired of the destruction. Tired of the power outages. Tired of the lines for food and gas and water and ice.

Well guess what, Florida Panhandle — I'm tired of it too!

I'm tired of having to subsidize your being tired of it. I'm tired of my taxes funding the Federal Emergency Management Agency and its perpetual subsidization of your lifestyle, "tired" or otherwise. I'm tired of the whole "private benefits, social costs" paradigm that underlies your whole region.

News flash: Hurricanes strike Florida. Hurricanes strike the Gulf States. Deal with it, and pay for it yourselves, the same as you pay for air conditioning or lawn sprinklers. Either that, or move.

When a real (i.e., unforeseen) disaster strikes, I'll be ready, checkbook in hand, to help out. But hurricanes are not unforeseen, they are business-as-usual. So too are the politics of hurricanes and the taxes that stem from it.

And I'm tired of it all.

UPDATE: Some people are figuring it out --

For Linda Campbell, a minister who conducts weddings on the beach, leaving the waterfront means leaving behind part of her livelihood. But after three hurricanes in a decade -- including two in the past 10 months -- she and her husband have joined other repeat storm victims who are now planning to sell their Florida Panhandle homes and move away from the water for good.

"How much more can we take?" asked Campbell, whose barrier island home on Navarre Beach sits near the spot where Hurricane Dennis rolled ashore Sunday. "I kind of feel like I keep experiencing a death over and over again."

The Campbells live in a "stilt house" -- perhaps the most thumb-your-nose-at-nature gesture humans can undertake. How can you build a house that's not even on solid ground and not expect trouble every time a storm comes?