Pandemics and hurricanes have a lot in common. As I’ve frequently mentioned, I live in “hurricane country”, the coast of the lowcountry of South Carolina, just south of Charleston to be exact. Just the other day I was thinking that we might just squeak through this hurricane season without a storm to worry about. Tropical depression #2 has decided to let me know the foolishness of my thought process.
TD #2 morning of 13AUG09
Given the very nature of tropical systems a five-day forecast is nothing more than a computer model consensus of what might be, and it is generally wrong by very large margins of error.
Even given that very large margin of error we have to watch and remain alert. At some point it will either become clear that we can relax our vigilance or we will have to start implementing our plans of action for a threatening storm. Those plans and actions are geared to the likely severity and proximity of landfall of the approaching storm.
I have approached a possible future pandemic in the very same way. I started my pandemic odyssey because of H5N1 [bird flu], which has an extremely high mortality rate, and I’ve found myself living through the significantly less severe H1N1 2009, in both morbidity and mortality, than the seasonal influenzas we face year in and year out.
This far out TD #2 is “nothing but potential”, much like our pandemic this fall/winter. The storm might completely dissipate, it may remain out to sea posing not threat to land whatsoever, it may go into the Gulf of Mexico, bad for them – good for me. It could also develop into a full-fledged hurricane and those range from a “yawn” of category 1 to a disaster of “biblical proportions” – at least for the location it strikes – if it reaches the status of a category 5 storm.
Having ridden out and lived through all the grueling aftermath of 1989’s hurricane Huge, which made landfall 18 miles south of where I was sitting, I learned the hard way not to take a storm for granted. In many ways it was my experiences with that hurricane, both during and after, that drive much of what I do on the pandemic issue.
Next month will be the 20th anniversary of Hugo’s landfall. To this day there are memories that will bring tears to my eyes. To this day there are memories that feel as freshly painful today as they did when they happened. I learned a lot, but I had to learn it the hard way – the painful way.
Twenty years ago it was my husband who assisted and protected the citizens of his district, nowadays it’s my son. When people fail to do what they should do prior to a storm it makes it so much harder for those whose job it is to assist and protect.
Yes, hurricanes and pandemics have a lot in common, right up to and including all the messy and unnecessary burdens inflicted upon those trying to do their jobs by those who did not do theirs.
For our approaching flu season we have all been asked to minimally prepare with an in-hand stock of what we will need to care for our families and ourselves for a minimum of three days and optimally for two weeks. How many have already done so? Probably roughly the same proportion that prepares for a hurricane before one is a threat knocking at their door. In other words, about 10% [rough estimate]. The rest will either do nothing or they will be out fighting the crowds over the limited supplies on store shelves, and many of those will walk away empty handed because of stock depletion or sheer frustration over long lines and unruly competing shoppers.
It takes so little to prepare in advance….