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Comment by NoOneNew | Hacker News Reader

Um... because there are no chemical plants of any sort in Florida...?

I dont know what fantasy image of Florida you have, but we have refineries and nuclear plants here too sweetheart. It's not just shacks and gator swamp here. I live nearby NASA too. As much as I love them, we aren't exactly talking about an organization known for working with 100% organic, safe for the environment compounds. Dorian freaked out most of the county when it was originally bee lining for the launch pad.

In truth, if you live in a somewhat civilized and populated area, you are in a severe danger zone if a natural disaster strikes. The amount of "toxins" that make the modern work are vulnerable to those types of shocks. No one is actually safe from that, ever.

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No one in their right mind compares the petro industry of Houston to anything in Florida.

https://archive.epa.gov/sectors/web/html/map-3.html

Houston and Tampa are pretty similar in number when it comes to ecological disaster potential.

A big difference is the size of the population that lives in the danger area because of Houston zoning. It's the 4 largest city in the US by population with a massive greater city area

Yea, you're right, the 3 million people living in the tampa metro area, their lives dont matter.

Noting there is a difference in population and potential impact is not the same as saying X million lives don't matter.

At least try and engage with good faith.

it ain't all butterflies and beehives in the state of Florida.

Well is there a similarly situated concentrated zone of toxins in florida which isn’t sufficiently secured against damage?

You still haven’t addressed the central point! Every disaster has some potential to cause wider damage. But the linked article is making a a specific claim that the Galveston area is far beyond normal levels.

My central point was the fact that articles and studies like these are a dime a dozen. I even mentioned that this one does seem like an honest article, but there's technically no surprise among those who can actually do anything. The limiting factor to any hurricane protection is funding and resources, not knowledge. FL does seem to take things more seriously, but I won't blame the other gulf states when they may have bigger fish to fry. We (Florida) may just have more open resources than let's say Texas. I dont know and it's not right for anyone to judge otherwise unless you're actually apart of the process that does any good.

It's super easy to cry out that the sky is falling and a disaster is coming. Which, again, all gulf states are told, "A hurricane will kill you all this year" every single year. It's a whole different story to pony up the cash and time to do something about it.

[EDIT: Sorry if the tone of this in harsh. I see in your original comment that you do say that people should take this seriously, and though there's a lot of noise, there's also signal when it comes to this stuff.]

> I dont know and it's not right for anyone to judge otherwise unless you're actually apart of the process that does any good.

Respectfully, I disagree. IMHO the whole point of a democracy and an open society is for citizens to make judgements of processes which they’re not a part of. Hopefully those judgements are informed and humble, but our job - our duty - as citizens in a democracy is to judge nonetheless.

> It's a whole different story to pony up the cash and time to do something about it.

It sounds like the prof in question has been trying to get people to do that. I’d assume the newspaper published the story in the hope it would raise awareness. What else other than publish a story is a newspaper going to do?

Florida isn't perfect, but the structures that you mentioned are designed to survive hurricanes. Those structures in Houston are not as well designed. The city is also not as well planned in general compared to most parts of FL. I know this because I'm also from Houston and not just Florida

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