and here comes the next one.

[piranha]

hurricane wilma is battering cozumel, and cancun (pictures).

i wonder whether i'd be writing journal entries while a hurricane is busy trying to tear my home down. probably.

cuba evacuated 370,000 people from its western coast. how come cuba is so good at evacuating? they seem to have it down pat. lessons to be learned?

Comments

[crazed-lynn.livejournal.com]

We simply have the wrong dictator.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Castro actually gives a shit.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

This may actually be one of the few benefits of having a dictator -- there's a REAL clear chain of command. And, well, if you're Fidel Castro, you really can't pass the buck to anyone else. He screws up, it's pretty damn clear who screwed up.

[asciident]

Aside from Castro giving a shit, and a clear chain of command that points directly at him if shit messes up, Cuba has had tons of practice for handling hurricanes. (Although certainly Castro giving a shit helps. ;))

[bpt.livejournal.com]

regarding Cuba, see Weathering the Storm: Lessons in Risk Reduction from Cuba (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A//www.oxfamamerica.org/newsandpublications/publications/research_reports/pdfs/cuba_hur_eng.pdf&ei=UOxZQ6C4Nb_macOnkMQC&sig2=GSULvI2ifhh3iO9RE0GBDQ) from Oxfam

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

Re: Cuba: Practice, practice, practice.

I want to know what the hell happens when we run out of the alphabet? *Wilma*!???

naming hurricanes

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

they start using the letters of the greek alphabet.

Re: naming hurricanes

[desh]

What I want to know is, if Alpha turns into a major landfalling hurricane (which would be terrible, but still), do they retire the name? And start naming any future year's storm-after-W with "Beta"?

Re: naming hurricanes

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

good question, i was wondering about that myself. and since i don't know, and the only info i found when googling was a joke about using the swahili alphabet next, i asked on jeff masters' weather blog (jeffweather; terribly interesting if you care about storms). will let you know if i hear anything back.

Re: naming hurricanes

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

jeff masters said on his blog that there are no provisions for what to do in the event we have to retire a greek-lettered storm's name and replace it on the list of hurricane names. one possibility is that the storm will be dubbed greek-letter-2005 and the greek letter will be reused. another possibilty is that the already used greek letter will be skipped over next time the greek alphabet comes into use.

personally, i think they should add in the missing letters, which would give them enough options. languages that don't feature those letters should get with the global thing. alternatively, they could just start with the next set of names; i see no particularly compelling reason against that.