One too many mornings

It could have happened before. Last year in fact they just avoided calamity by a whisker.
Lefti wrote of Hurricane Ivan

And there is a better way. One year ago the Wall Street Journal of all organs reported that Cubans do it better.

“Civil Defense Lt. Angel Macareno…credited Cuba’s evacuation program for ensuring no one died. He said nearly 1.9 million of the nation’s 11.2 million people [Ed. note: nearly one-fifth of the population!] - rather than the 1.3 million earlier reported - were evacuated before Ivan struck.

“Evacuations here are widespread and mandatory. Civil defense plans are highly developed, with preparedness education programs for the entire population.

“‘The Cuban way could easily be applied to other countries with similar economic conditions, and even in countries with greater resources that do not manage to protect their population as well as Cuba does,’ Salvano Briceno, director of the U.N. International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, said in Geneva. [Ed. note: of course this applies to a lot more than just hurricane preparations]

“In 1998, only four people died during Hurricane Georges, while 600 died elsewhere. This year, Hurricane Charley killed four people in Cuba, but 27 in Florida.”

Why do we do this to ourselves when we don’t have to?