Darren, what a great blog. I love your banner, bright travel colors, excellent content and the site is very functional and easy to navigate. Excellent post on travel during hurricane season. I have referenced it at my blog, Beyond Katrina: The Voice of Hurricane Recovery with a link back to your site.

Margaret Saizan
Beyond Katrina: The Voice of Hurricane Recovery
http://www.hurricane-katrina.org

PS - Darren, I am trying to get in touch with you. I tried to communicate via your contact form but I keep getting a message that my email is invalid. I want to pitch an interesting idea to you that I think would benefit your blog. You have my email address. Give me a shout.

Margaret

Darren,

I absolutely agree with you that travel agents (and those of us who own private villas) should point out that the traveller is considering visiting an area which is prone to hurricanes - or any other serious weather condition.

There is a fine line, however, between infomation and scaremongering. Information should be given putting the risks in proportion. Florida is about the size of the whole of England, and the rest of the US Gulf Coast is even larger. The population is vast, and the areas which have suffered serious damage in the past few years do not number that many.

Residents of the southern states have lived for generations in the area, and very few have been unfortunate enough to have suffered loss or damage.

The same is true of Indonesia and many other countries which are prone to serious weather conditions, whether they be called hurricanes, cyclones or whatever.

A simple statement from travel agents as to the recongnised seasons for these conditions should, I agree, be given to travellers, but along with this should be at the very least a link to further information about the chances of this causing a problem, and more inmportantly, WHAT TO DO IF IT DOES!

The exact path of these storms cannot be predicted, and one of the main reasons for the loss of life in New Orleans was because most people chose to wait and see if Katrina would veer a little further before making landfall. She may well have done so just as many hurricanes before her have done. The main reason for the extensive damage was because of the situation of New Orleans being below sea-level and the levee system not being adequately maintained and improved to withstand such a force.

If you stay in a hotel in San Francisco for example you will find in the front pages of the phone book information as to what to do in the event of an earthquake. In the southern states it will be in the event of a hurricane or tornado. In Hong Kong it will be cyclones etc. etc. Serious weather conditions abound across the world, but we do need to keep the extent of the damage in proportion. After all, how many of us would choose not to go to Scotland because there is a higher risk of snow there in the winter?

I think the warnings should be pointed out, and further information should be made available if the traveller has concerns, but care has to be taken not to damage the tourist trade in these vulnerable areas of the world.

It is not my intention to belittle the horrific effects of such storms. (Indeed, you know me well Darren, and are aware that I have suffered considerably on a personal level from hurricane damage) but merely to put them in proportion to the delights of travel to some wonderful places in the world.

On a final note - and I hope this doesn’t jinx things - 2006 was predicted to be almost as bad as 2005 for hurricanes in the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, and here we are half way through the season and only two, relatively minor, storms have made landfall. OK I know there are still three more months to go, but already the weather pundits have revised their forecast.

Sandy