You can run...

...but you can't hide.

By the end of last week, I found myself checking the weather for not just my rain soaked region but for Ruth's as well. There was talk of flooding, with a news report about how they were preparing for water evacuations in her state. Yikes.

I think everyone I know came through the downpours ok, and I am thankful for that. And here at Chez Dump, I am still waiting for my ceiling to be fixed.

After the clouds lifted this weekend, one of my brother's friends sent this to me with the subject line of "safety first":

Where To Hide From Mother Nature
Wyoming? Nope. West Virginia? Think again.
By Brendan I. Koerner
Posted Thursday, Sept. 15, 2005

Early on in the article (which is at Slate.com), Mr. Koerner tells us that some "worryworts" out there might be wondering where in the US they can live that is not in some way disaster prone."Worryworts"? I guess he doesn't think any of the folks displaced by the gulf hurricane season might read Slate. Or anyone who ever lost a part of their lives to a natural disaster. I'm sure he didn't mean to casually invalidate the fully justified fear of living in a disaster prone area that some disaster surivors might have. I mean, there's probably a lot of those folks out there what with all the severe hurricanes we've had in the past ten years or so, and do terrorist attacks count? I think they should, FEMA counts them.

Oh wait, I think I know why he can get away with this tone. I'll bet the folks most likely to be left behind and/or forgotten and/or severely and persistently impacted by a disaster or even a whim of the elements (e.g. a week of torrential rain, ice storms, heat waves, a cold snap when heating prices are too high and the prez just cut funding) are more likely to be poor (and possibly old, not white, non native speakers of English, etc). Seems like a pretty sound deduction, doesn't it?
BTW, If anyone's got some numbers to back it up or shoot it down, let me know. I like that sort of thing.

If that seemingly reasonable deduction is true, then presumably the author might just assume that "those people" don't read Slate.

As a matter of fact, I don't usually read Slate.

Early on in my use of the internet (back when I had my old hotmail account) I realized that I find Slate annoying, assuming, and usually insulting. I mean, come on, the "story" referenced here appears on Slate under "The Gist - A cheat sheet for the news."
Wow that bothers me. It bothers me in so many ways.

Anyhow, in this amusing outsider's view of safety (outside because we all scoff at the idea of living without at least a belief of security - amusing because we're just like the author and therefore see how silly it is to be afraid of hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, etc. Those happen to other people!).... ahem, as I was saying, the author begins an "analysis" of the safest place to live in the US with the (presumably tongue in cheek) proclamation that "...some corners are safer than others."

He narrows down the "finalists" to Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut for safest states. Apparently southern coastal New England is safer than many places, who knew? And here I thought all that violence and nastiness about bussing and stuff like that was, well, bad. Again, safe from the elements if you have the money or the pedigree to have not just a roof over your head but the right roof over your head.

Then the author concludes that Connecticut was the safest of the three. And (drumroll) the safest place to live according to Slate is "...the area in and around St0rrs, Conn."
Why? "It's a safe 50 miles from the sound and not close to any rivers. It also has relatively easy access to a major city (Hartford) in the event an evacuation or hospitalization becomes necessary."

Here's my reply to my brother and his friend who forwarded this article to me.

Aside from the whole economic disparity in what is safe vs unsafe, the major problem with judging St0rrs to be "safest" is that they don't take into account things having to do with the "rural character" of this place - a character which everyone from the townies to the state officials seem to want to preserve at all costs. What does this "rural character" do that is so bad, other than provide a breeding ground for Martha Stewart inspired Country Duck rusticana style lawn and house decorations?

I'll tell ya what it does.
If there were fire in your house in, oh say Ashford (which is in what we like to refer to as "the greater St0rrs area") your house would burn to the ground and anyone trapped inside would die long before the volunteer firefighters ever even got to one of a handful of underfunded fire stations. The ambulance companies, firemen, and in some cases police departments are funded or supplemented by community "donations", which are extorted out of the residents using mob-like tactics.

Connecticut is owned by the insurance companies and if you live here the only thing saving you from having universal protocols that read "take two (insert generic drug of choice here) and don't call back" is that we have a marvelously crusading state attorney general. Even still, a state whose legislative and executive branches are all but owned by insurance companies has resulted in some quite horrible medical facilities. The hospitals in this area are just plain horrible, or evil, or both. Sane doctors who like to practice medicine and not be raped on their malpractice insurance do not come here. So we are left (mostly) with quacks who practice medicine with the equivalent of beads and rattles more often than with MRIs and lab values.

Most of our towns do not have a local police force. They share a small set of state troopers. Combined, all 24 police officers whose jurisdiction is made up of the greater St0rrs area are usually busy arresting drunk undergrads or ticketing out of state speeders. Hence, they can't be bothered to take the time to respond fully to the numerous domestic violence complaints in the area (we seem to have a rather high number of domestic homicides for some strange reason).

Oh and how could I foget that the university in St0rrs was voted the 12th most homophobic campus in the country in 2000? ( See link1 and link2)

So, "safe", as usual, should be considered a relative term.