Why were people unprepared for the storm of 1987?

Question

And what have we learnt from it?

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Answer 1

nothin nobody is ever prepared for bad storms

Answer 2

Denial, probably nothing We are still in denial.

Answer 3

because the dam weather men told us not to worry and we have learned michael fish is not to be trusted ;-)

Answer 4

Storms are hard to predict. A big storm is forecast and evacuations ordered, and then the storm fizzles out at the last minute. People are annoyed at having to take all those measures for nothing. Then it happens again and again. Officials are just being conservative and careful. Better to evacuate unnecessarily than to do nothing and risk death, right? But people get sick and tired of the false alarms and so start to ignore them. And the officials get less and less conservative and take less drastic action because there have been so many past preparations that cost millions and inconvenienced so many people before and they don't want to rock the boat. Then a really big storm DOES hit, maybe even one that was forecast to be smaller, and everyone yells that THEY should have known! Just like you are now.