The pictures from the Gulf Coast are horrifying. The scope of devastation in that region is a sobering reminder of the power of nature. My family sends our prayers to the damaged region and the survivors, as well as money in the form of donations to the Red Cross, which is one of the few charities I actually trust to disburse the funds.

All that being said, if I were ever warned about an impending earthquake (this is California, after all) and given 12 hours to evacuate, you damn well know that I would be hundreds of miles away from the epicenter with my family, my dog, and my supplies. After the 1989 earthquake, I heard from people saying shit like “Well, that’s what you get for living in California”.

Listen, we have earthquakes all the time here. Most are small and feel like a big truck is passing by, or that a car just hit the building. We have severe damage maybe once every twenty years, and catastrophic destruction about once every century. The southeastern US has “hurricane SEASON”, an entire section of the year where hurricanes are not only common, but expected.

The smart ones are people that evacuated their homes in Louisiana and Mississippi. They lost their homes and most of their possessions. But not their lives. Why would anyone stay in the hurricane’s path? Do they somehow think that their presence would have an effect on winds of 140+ miles per hour? Leave, dammit. Homes can be rebuilt. Once you’re dead, lives cannot be resuscitated.

Now the looting has begun. Not only in the affected cities, but at every single gas pump in the country. Gas prices jumped by 10%, seemingly overnight, when the reports of refinery damage were shown. Hey, you asshole gas station owner, the price of the gas in your underground tank didn’t change. You’re just using the crude oil price jump as an excuse to jack up your pump prices despite the fact that the gas YOU ALREADY BOUGHT didn’t suddenly increase in price. So, using that same logic, the next time crude oil prices drop, your pump prices should drop immediately too. But I know they won’t, you money grubbing weasels.

Here’s hoping that the intelligent people (evacuees) get first dibs on relief, and the stubborn people who stayed against all reason don’t absorb all the money because of their more desperate situation. This’ll never happen, but I want my money to go to people who evacuated their homes and lost all their possessions, and not to people who stayed home and are living on overpasses because they refused to leave despite all warnings.