How People Hundreds of Miles Away Can Feel the Effects of Hurricanes

Hurricane season is starting to get into the later months of the year and everyone knows that the fall months are the worse for hurricanes. The effect from hurricanes normally are felt where the strike but the effects can also cause problems for cities and people thousands of miles away.

When a major hurricane strikes the east coast, the effects can be felt on the west coast and beyond sometimes depending on the severity. Here are some ways that hurricanes really effect people and places thousands of miles away.

The biggest way it can effect everyone is by the way gas prices go up. Every time there is a major hurricane threat around the United States, there is always a hike in gas prices but it's when there's a major hurricane impact that gas prices really take a hike.

Remember back to hurricane Katrina, I had just gotten my drivers license but didn't have a car at the time and gas prices were going up like crazy around Michigan. This was the first time in my life that I ever saw gas prices go over $3.00 a gallon and stayed even higher than that for months and months.

This effect alone forced my family to skip the trip we take up north every year because the amount of gas the trail blazer and truck took pulling a boat and travel trailer was just way to much for anyone to handle. I had friends I went to school that started taking bikes to work if they lived close enough to avoid gas until it came back down.

A week after we were suppose to go up north, I went up with a few buddies of mine and we just pitched a tent instead and to our surprise once we got up to the camp grounds, the normal wall to wall pack in was more like a deserted vacation spot. In my whole life I have never seen it that empty. A year later though it was back to the normal activity it had before and my grandpa talked to some people and said gas was just too high to take a vacation. Even though hurricane Katrina happened way down south, it still effected people in the North and probably all over America.

There are other ways it can effect people outside the impact zone like the shipping of goods and services and possibly trade to other countries. With all the ports going down in Louisiana, there were no ways of shipping goods anywhere outside the U.S. from the Gulf region down there. Any goods created around the Gulf region that was heading out to the rest of the country were also on hold until then. Thankfully this is mostly an inconvenience towards businesses and nothing that led to something worse.

Other ways it can effect people in different areas that some may not think about would be coming together and helping others. This isn't a negative impact but a positive once instead. After the Katrina impact, there were people from all over the country that went to Louisiana to help with the clean up.

I knew people in my town in Michigan that took a bus to Louisiana to help victims out. Stores were accepting donations, there were walk rallies to raise money for the effort and more. I was surprised to see how everyone can come together in the time of need, much like after September 11^th happened. It's good see people of this country come together in times of need.