Category 2 Mitch gets people reasonin' with Hurricane Season

When Da Paper reported that Mayor Mitch said he might order a mandatory evacuation of the city for a Category 2 storm, there was a bit of a rumble on Da Twittah. The city's Post-K policy opened the bidding on mandatory evacuation at Cat 3. Comments about him being an overly cautious, fraidy-cat pol made me go back and actually read his remarks. Novel idea, that, reading what someone says, in context. This section sums it up:

"So that's why, at some point in time when we consider all of those things, if we say, 'Listen, this is a serious threat,' you might have to evacuate with a Category 2 storm that's coming with a different speed and with different wave (action).

"We will try to be very clear about this," Landrieu said. "My message to that people is anything above a Category 1 -- that is a Category 2, 3, 4 or 5 -- laid on top with heavy wind, heavy wave action, could require us to call an evacuation, and we won't do that unless we think that you're at risk."

All of a sudden, Mayor Mitch is making more sense than the nola-twitterati seemed to be giving him. I can't remember the storm's name, but there was one back in the 1990s that sat off of Tampa Bay and just savaged Tampa/St. Pete for several days with wind and rain. It wasn't a powerful storm on the Saffer-Simpson scale, but the overall volume of rain it dropped on the area really screwed things up.

Go read the rest of the article, though. It's a very solid assessment of the city's danger points. The mayor, his deputy, and even Councilwoman Blue Light did well.

Most importantly, they kicked off hurricane season with a public voice and an increased level of awareness. Here's to hoping that continues throughout the summer and fall.