General Discussion

My father's side of my family is originally from Guam. Guam is smack dab in the Pacific's Typhoon alley. My father was on island during Typhoon Pongsona in 2002. Max sustained winds of 145 mph, gusts to 173 mph. The island was in the eye for over 2 hours. The petroleum tanks for the island's power station caught fire in the middle of the storm. Concrete utility poles toppled like lincoln logs. My father told me you could tell when a bad typhoon hit the island because everything was brown; every tree that wasn't toppled was stripped of all it's leaves (or killed by saltwater the storm blew in off the ocean miles inland).

Massive Typhoons are the norm on the island. So much so, people don't usually build flimsy structures (reenforced concrete, hurricane proof windows). Evacuations are taken seriously, storm shelters are prepared and stocked, generators are readied and so forth. People on Guam go through this routine many times a year and probably suffer major Typhoons a couple of times a decade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_typhoons_in_Guam].

Contrast this with places like Florida or the Gulf Coast which probably have a lower frequency and much weaker storms than Guam does. Keep in mind just about everything on Guam has to come in by air or boat. These modes of resupply can be severely diminished immediately after a storm. Also, you can't usually bring in utility crews from neighboring states; Guam is a good 5 hour flight from Hawaii.

You've got to wonder how folks on a remote Pacific Island with major tropical storms impacting the island even year manage to "weather" these storms and state-side people always seem to have major issues despite ample warnings and the floods of relief, utility and volunteers (government and private) available to them.

Maybe state-side people can learn from the people of Guam. Take storms seriously both their intensity and the FACT that you are going to have to deal with one multiple times in your life if you decide to live in these areas. Don't build flimsy buildings and expect them to survive multiple storm events. Don't build structures in areas that flood. Be prepared for disruptions from these storms; it has to be baked in to your "lifestyle".

If I'm being insensitive, so be it. But watching people who decide to live in areas where they expose themselves to disruption and are surprised when it happens (multiple times) eventually gets fatiguing on my empathy.