Paul England pilots his boat through floodwaters in Port Arthur, Tex., in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey on Sept. 2. (Gerald Herbert/AP)The astonishing hurricanes of 2017, Harvey and Irma, have provided a sobering lesson in the power of nature, along with some modest reassurance about how Americans respond when calm blue skies turn a violent gray. Improved storm track forecasts gave millions of people and civic leaders time to prepare for tornadic winds and biblical flooding. The flooding, in the end, caused fewer deaths than the evacuation of Houston ahead of Hurricane Rita in 2005. “We don’t seem to learn the lessons over and over again from past hurricanes,” he said.

Source: Washington Post September 18, 2017 01:20 UTC