The tough part's doing nothing.  Which is the only meaningful thing a person can do.

For decades everyone's known somewhere behind that locked compartment of consciousness that one of these days just the right storm would rage out of the Carib into the Gulf, would stalk, building the huge breath while making up its mind just where to make the target this time.

But the years, decades, generations between the bad'uns make everyone forget.  We humans have, after all, limited attention spans.

So, there's this job down there at a local level.  Emergency Manager.  No emergencies here, but the pay's okay and Charlie has that half-wit cousin needs a job.  It's a place where he can't do much damage, out of the way, and we have to have someone to wear that hat.

So Charlie's cousin has himself a nice cushy job and the relatives don't have to worry about him.  The State guys come around and pester him, demand that he gets some training, create some plans, exercise them.  Beg and cajole.

And Charlies's cousin promises.  He really intends to do it.  But the County or City doesn't want to pay for him to sit through all those useless training sessions.  Besides, his other job is emptying the trash in the courthouse, sweeping the floors.  Who's going to do that when he's off learning a lot of useless stuff just to check things off the requirements list.

Stall 'em.  We'll do it next year.

Then the big one comes slouching in off the Gulf.  And when it's all over all those relatives and locals want to know why they got caught with their pants down.

Poor old Charlie's cousin hangs out to dry.

No one remembers.

Happens every time, just the community names change.

Jack