I am going to put this here instead of the Severe Weather thread. I don't want to have to make a Non Political Severe Weather thread.
I have seen a bumper sticker on a few vehicles locally over the last six months or so. The bumper sticker says "Don't New York My Florida.". My interpretation of the message based on talking to a couple of people I know who have one on their vehicle is you left New York for a reason (liberal politics), don't bring that down here. It represents a undercurrent of resentment among long time residents to newcomers who may speak the same language as far as hatred of the left, also want to bring parts of the City down here as well. It is not a new story and not one that is unique to this area.
Fast forward to today. Hurricane Ian is coming to visit and everyone is getting prepared. Of course most of the long term residents are moving a little slower than others because to be frank, most have already done most of the prep earlier in the hurricane season. One thing that most people don't prep early for are sandbags. Every county has multiple sand bag locations. What that means is the county has brought a couple of dump trucks filled with sand to an empty location like the parking lot of the local little league baseball fields. They dump the sand, drop off bales of sand bags and maybe a few shovels. If you need sandbags, you fill them, you haul them away. Pretty simple process and more often than not, there are folks with extra shovels if you happen not to bring your own. It is rare but if there is a senior citizen who came to fill sand bags without an capable shovel-er in tow and is struggling to do the work themselves, they might be helped out. Sadly that is becoming rarer but it is what it is. Other than that, it is DIY and everyone knows that coming in.
I give all of that background because there are people complaining on Facebook this evening that is it ridiculous that the county does not provide workers to help people fill their sandbags and put them in their cars at the very least. They are saying that no one has time to waste filling sand bags when there are so many other things they need to get done to prepare for the hurricane. Someone mentioned that NYC distributed inflatable dams and sandbags for people in flood zones. Needless to say, the natives are not super receptive to talk about how they do things up north and are making that known in response. It has definitely provided a bit of levity as we await the end of the world.