I have to admit if the only information I had was the name, I might be subconsciously less anxious about "Hurricane Mimi" than I would be about "Hurricane Mohammed Ali". Just more evidence of our deeply ingrained, bigoted, sexist stereotype of women as physically smaller and less aggressive than men.

I just can't believe this is real, and I can't believe Ken R, were he living in South Florida or the Seaboard, wouldn't be just as concerned for the well-being of his house in a storm with a feminine name. I think there are methodology problems here.

I think that would probably be more accurately stated as: Female-named hurricanes kill more than male hurricanes because people don't respect them as much. I'm sure that people have plenty of respect for all hurricanes, whether they are named Hurricane Gidget or Hurricane Brutus.

I used to work for Boeing and, back in late August of 1992, my boss sent to me to a conference in New Orleans. We were there as Hurricane Andrew was approaching. I recall some suggestions that people evacuate the city but I believe that very few people did, assuming that New Orleans was somehow "immune" (many shops, however, did have their windows covered with plywood.) When, years later, Katrina hit and devastated the city, I shuddered, thinking what it would have been like if Andrew had pulled a Katrina while we were there.

Sexist AND homophobic. (I can't believe the WaPo missed this angle - perhaps they're due for some sensitivity training.)

How is this homophobic, you say? The willingness to get blown by a Gloria - but a fear of getting blown by a Hugo - is clear evidence of a homophobic worldview, is it not?

AB, that is hilarious.

PS I'm terrified of all earthquakes and they have no names. Does that make me "earthquake-neutral"?

As someone who grew up in an area where hurricanes were a regular part of life (eastern NC) I can say that this attitude didn't happen. People are set in their ways and the ones that decide to evacuate always did regardless of the name and the ones that stayed always did regardless of the name.

Honestly, I'm beginning to think this kind of thing may be an unconscious plea for limits on the part of feminizts.

"What does it take to get a rise out of you sheeple! Stop coddling us! Take us seriously! Call us out when we produce such blatant schlock!"

Wait, what? This is a real article? I didn't even look at the link until I started reading the comments here, because I assumed it was a joke.

"PS I'm terrified of all earthquakes and they have no names. Does that make me 'earthquake-neutral'?"

Earthquakes are all female. Big cracks, you know.

Hmmm, Hurricane Katrina was a real bitch.

My middle name is also a prominent hurricane.

oh, so it's respect, eh? Is that the same thing as feeling that a woman might be KINDER,/em> than a man? Somehow you don't respect her because the guy is more likely to pound you into the pavement?

:massive eyeroll: Fine, kill the tradition and start just numbering them... If all the yammering idiots will just shut up.

So, let's hunt for the thumb on the scale... Oh, here it is! Inconvenient truth: From 1953, when the then-Weather Bureau established the current system for naming hurricanes, until 1978, only women's names were used. So, in the history of that system, there are approximately 40% more storms with female names than with male names. So it stands to reason that more fatalities have resulted from storms with female names. There's also the problem of what the saber guys call SSS: small sample size. According to this handy page from Weather Underground, of the 30 deadliest hurricanes in U.S. history, only nine have occurred since 1953 and hence have generally recognized names:

* Katrina, 2005, 1200 deaths
* Audrey, 1957, 416 deaths
* Camille, 1969, 256 deaths
* Diane, 1955, 184 deaths
* Agnes, 1972, 155 deaths
* Hazel, 1954, 95 deaths
* Betsy, 1965, 75 deaths
* Carol, 1954, 60 deaths
* Floyd, 1999, 56 deaths

Only two of those since 1979, when the NWS started using the mixed male and female names. By luck of the draw, Katrina got a female name. And as you can see, Katrina was a unique circumstance since the fatalities from it roughly equal the fatalities from all the other storms on the list combined. And we've discussed here the many cultural factors that contributed to that -- in short, if some people in New Orleans had gotten their asses out of Dodge instead of waiting for the government limo to come around and collect them, the death toll would have been far lower.

So yes, the "study", and especially its conclusion, is complete and utter statistical bullshit.

This is what I expect, considering studies have proven that 83.17% of all statistics from studies are made up.

Here's a sarcastic takedown.

According to Slate: "...when the authors did attempt to account for this by comparing only storms after 1979, as you might expect, any correlation between names and deadliness vanished."

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/06/03/are_hurricanes_named_after_women_more_dangerous_not_so_fast.html

> This is what I expect, considering studies
> have proven that 83.17% of all statistics
> from studies are made up.

Look, if you're going to so glibly cite Einstein's seminal 1907 email, you should at least get the wording right: He said "83.17% of all statistics from published studies are made fictionalized." [Emphasis: Cridmo.]

I blame Bush.

I'd worry more about the female hurricanes: girls can hurt you in ways guys cannot.

That bit about "if your travel plans do not include city XXX, this would be an excellent time to let us know" used to be pretty routine for Comair in Cincinnati. Their terminal C there had a very efficient but unusual gate system: after they scanned your ticket, you entered a hallway network that had a series of doors leading to different aircraft. Although each door had an electric sign saying what flight and city it was for, sometimes people got confused and went to the wrong aircraft.

Reply fail... I meant to post that in the link thread.