In South Florida, the 3 days since Irma have been hell. Without power, homes have become saunas.
That's pretty hard for me to believe. People had been living in the South since before the formation of this country... Do you have any stats to back that up?
In the days leading up to Irma, it was already like the apocalypse. You couldn't get gasoline, water, plywood, or non-perishable goods for love or money. You couldn't drive away because the roads were jammed. Closer to the storm, you couldn't get to a shelter because they were full. Airports shut down. There was nowhere to run (or hide, really).
During the storm, once the winds got to 40 mph, you were on your own - no 911, no police, no fire department. If someone decided to brave the storm and break into your house, it was up to you to defend yourself.
After the storm, there was no power, many roads were impassable, no gasoline, no food, no water, no sanitation, no way to flush toilets without using precious water.
It was a relatively short, but terrifying preview of what a prolonged loss of electricity would do. I think Scientific American compared the power output of a major hurricane to one 10 megaton nuclear bomb explosion every 20 minutes.
If anyone wants to know what a post-apocalyptic world looks like, take an area hit by a major hurricane, remove FEMA, medical support, and law enforcement, and multiply that by a couple of orders of magnitude.
It's a lot more real when you've been an unwilling participant.
new architecture is often like sealed boxes
The old plantation house on my family's farm is 120 feet long and only 20 feet wide. It's situated on the top of the highest hill for a mile in any direction, and oriented precisely to the prevailing winds. Brick foundation, horsehair plaster walls, and a detached summer kitchen.