Disasters always lead to trouble, especially with Fiona and Ian

Two major storms have hit the United States and Canada this year. Both affected parts outside the U.S. as well.

Here is a page on Hurricanes in History from NHC.

The linked NHC page is not covering every major storm, but there are a lot of storms that could be historical.

JHere are more resources from NHC which might be of value:

• Hurricane Fiona advisory archive
• Hurricane Ian advisory archive
• List of archives for all storms, starting 2022

In the last linked item, you can go as far back as 1998 but all of the archived storms are there. Finally, here is the reports page which can also go back in time to learn about how the storm formed, highlights on how it developed and other info that might be of value.

All of the links I’m providing from NHC, the National Hurricane Center as a resource, and something you can look up as you read today’s article.

The NHC also has a list of storm names and much more where you can learn.

Suffice it to say, this is not the first time that we’ve seen this type of thing. When Katrina and Rita came through Louisiana, scammers set up shop trying to get money for New Orleans specificly as Katrina took it out like Ian took out parts of Florida.

The article that is going out through Komando and the newsletter is Storm scams are here — How to avoid them in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian and there is definitely information here that you can use to try and protect yourself.

Florida really needs your help, and you can find the most appropriate site to donate to by searching carefully for the Red Cross in Florida, One polace you can go to is this Florida Disaster page.

You don’t want to donate to sites that claim they’re going to do it, especially if they have just popped up in the last few weeks.

You can also go to https://www.volunteerflorida.org which would also be reputable.

There is a way that you can check to see how old a domain is if you come across something that looks suspicious. One is Icann domain lookup and other site is who is database search.

We know that millions are still without power as I type this, and the article we link to is talking about.

It is just sickening how actors can just think it is OK to go ahead and use people like you and I who want to help to get money for themselves. What about me? I have a donations page up, and while I link to it, I hardly get anything. While we should donate wisely, we don’t want to donate to sites that are so brand new and claim to do good, when the URL could be shady and tactics can be used to get it up to the top of the search results. I searched for something very specific and rememebered what I was looking for so if I saw something shady, I wouldn’t be linking it to this post.

Ian and other storms will be here for our lifetime. Let’s make sure we’re safe when we donate to relief, and listen to places like the weather channel or news in that area who will tell you how to donate.

Florida indicates money is the best option, they have supplies.

komando.com’s article lists guidelines on what you can do to make sure you’re safe and I’ve also given other tips and links to which you can use to check domains.

Remember, domains will be on this week’s podcast, so some of this may come up if people ask who are knew to this. Hope to see you all there, and remember that these resources are outside of the JRN suite of domains. Stay safe!