Catastrophes often furnish profound insight into human nature. When Ike barreled toward the Texas coast as a Category 3 hurricane last week, more than 1 million people on Galveston Island and in low-lying areas of Houston followed orders and evacuated their homes.

But more than one hundred thousand people refused to evacuate.

That seems illogical. Most of these people could easily have fled the death and destruction hurtling toward them. They chose not to.

It wasn’t that these people were oblivious to Ike’s immense fury. They, like the rest of America, tracked the swirling mass of terror for more than a week as it crawled from the southern Atlantic—grinding across Cuba, leveling large sections of the island—into the Gulf of Mexico, then toward the Texas coastline. Ike’s attack was not sudden.

Gulf Coasters knew Ike brandished catastrophic winds faster than 100 miles per hour. They knew it held enormous volumes of rain. They knew this whirling pressurized threat was creating a storm surge as high as 25 feet, and would undoubtedly deluge homes, sweep away belongings and drive those who remained behind to the rooftops of their homes. They knew it would sever power supplies, cut food lines and poison water supplies. These people knew—and were warned tirelessly by officials—that they would likely be killed by this hurricane.

Still, they stayed.

Of course, they had their reasons: protecting their property, convenience, not-so-fond memories of the Hurricane Rita evacuation.

Still, why would a sane person risk life, limb or family to a 900-mile-wide monster for the sake of things—or convenience? It’s just not rational. Rational people value life over death, or the loss of material belongings. When terror knocks, they will do everything possible to shuttle their family to safety.

Perhaps it’s easy to brand these people as irrational, selfish fools. But, if we’re honest, their refusal to flee demonstrates human nature’s proclivity to ignore terror!

We should think about this before we judge those who refused to flee Ike. Because you and I possess the same human nature as the folks in southern Texas. Yes, you have the same proclivity as those in Galveston to ignore terror, ignore warnings and refuse to flee to safety!

Don’t believe me? There are at least half a dozen hurricane-sized crises barreling down on America right now! What are you doing to protect yourself and your family from them?

Like Hurricane Ike, these crises can and have been tracked, many in alarming detail, for years. Now they’re on America’s doorstep, and very few Americans are responding rationally. Very few are evacuating to safety. Instead, most are ignoring the warnings and, like those who decided to stay behind in Galveston, are going about life as usual.

Hurricane Economic Collapse

First, and perhaps most obvious, is the Category 5 economic hurricane currently making landfall in America. Highly reputed economic analysts are calling this a “once in a century” financial storm. The entire United States economy, and some of America’s largest companies—names like Freddie, Fannie and Lehman—are being ransacked by catastrophic winds of debt and a housing market deluged by unsold, rapidly depreciating homes. On Tuesday, for example, aig, the largest insurer in the world, was hurriedly bailed out of bankruptcy by the American government, which had to inject $85 billion into the ailing behemoth.

The economic hurricane is here! It’s the one we’ve been warning about for years, the one that has long been evident on the balance sheets of American companies, in the reckless spending of the U.S. government and in the maxed-out credit cards of Americans.

How are you responding to this financial hurricane?

Hurricane Geopolitical Demise

Then there’s the geopolitical hurricane hurtling toward America. Most Americans remain blissfully ignorant of the terrifying world in which they live. Most refuse to accept that much of the world hates the United States, and, in many cases, is attempting to implement strategies and foreign policies designed to handicap and destroy American power.

Are you aware, for example, that Russia has publicly stated recently that undermining American power is a primary goal of its foreign policy? Anti-Americanism sentiment is pervasive in this world.

So what if the world hates us? argue some. We’re stronger than the rest, we can take care of ourselves. Those people need to take their head out of the sand. Sure, our military is the greatest in the world, but we lack the willpower to use it effectively.

Read the news. Watch world events. Even the mainstream press is now talking about the “rise of the rest” and the decline of the United States. Other people and nations don’t just dislike America—many of them possess the means to act on their disdain. Oil-rich states wield massive influence over U.S. energy supplies. Cash-laden states and enterprises wield immense sway over the American economy. Nations like Iran and Russia have bogged down America, and severely and permanently damaged its geopolitical strength.

The United States is rapidly becoming a geopolitical weakling while anti-American nations are emerging as geopolitical powerhouses. Hurricane Geopolitical Demise may be an off-shore threat, but it stands to impact every American. How serious do Americans perceive this problem to be? How many are searching for a safe place to flee to?

Hurricane Social Destruction

Other powerful, potentially devastating hurricanes are brewing inside America. Racial tension is palpable; race riots loom. Sexual immorality and sundry sexual perversions—considered normal and widely promoted in mainstream media—are destroying marriage and family. America’s children are mentally, emotionally and spiritually lost, abandoned by their parents and besieged by a culture that worships the gutter. The nation continues to face devastating problems: drug abuse and addiction, disease epidemics, the breakdown of education, and the list goes on.

Hurricane Ikes are beginning to pound every facet of American life. But most Americans, unaware and ignorant of the deadly potential of these storms, refuse to search for a safe place!

Hurricane Nature

fema’s declared disaster webpage bears out the fury of Hurricane Nature literally. The average number of disasters declared between 1959 and 1968 was 16.4. For the next two decades the yearly average rose to around 30. From 1989 to 1998, the average jumped to 44.1 disasters per year, that’s more than a 40 percent increase over the previous decade. From 1999 to now, the average number of disasters per year has leaped another 20 percent, and is currently 53.2.

“During his 7.5 years in office,” noted Austin Bogues last month, “President Bush has declared 422 major disasters—severe storms, tornadoes, wildfires and floods—or more than one a week. That’s 11 percent more than President Clinton’s disaster declarations and 130 percent more than President Reagan’s during their full two terms in office.

“All those natural disasters translate into more federal government spending. Under Bush, the government has committed to spend $87 billion in disaster relief funds to help states and localities clean up after floods, fires and storms, compared with Clinton’s nearly $29 billion. Even after adjusting for inflation, the Bush administration has spent 2½ times more than the Clinton administration on disaster relief” (emphasis mine throughout).

That’s what it costs the government—or taxpayers. But the government isn’t the only one bearing the costs of these disasters. Farmers across America can tell you about the cost of floods and droughts on their crops. Hurricane Gustav, which struck Louisiana less than two weeks before Ike, took an agricultural toll on that state of more than half a billion dollars. According to Louisiana Gannett News Service, “[s]tatewide, officials estimate Hurricane Gustav alone destroyed more than 14 percent of crops and forestry, wiping out almost $543 million in farm and forestry revenue, including more than half of the cotton and sweet potato crops.”

That’s one hurricane.

Ike is going to compound those figures. Though it did less damage than anticipated, it is still expected to have a tab into the billions. Early estimates indicate insurance claims alone could reach $18 billion.

Aid agencies can also testify to the weather disasters striking America. In 2005, the American Red Cross had to borrow money ($340 million) for the first time in its 127-year history to pay for its response efforts to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. That decision quickly became precedent. Days after Gustav struck earlier this month, the Red Cross announced that it needed to borrow more money to fund its $70 million Hurricane Gustav relief effort. The American Red Cross, as Philip Rucker noted in the Washington Post recently, is not alone in its funding shortfalls:

The gap between Gustav expenses and donations comes at a perilous time for relief groups. An unusually high number of U.S. disasters this year has taxed charities, from wildfires in California to tornadoes across the South. … Other nonprofit groups also prepared for the worst from Gustav and provided shelter, food and clothing for thousands of evacuees. The Salvation Army spent in excess of $1 million on Gustav, but it has raised just $30,000 to cover it. Save the Children, which spent more than $100,000 on diapers, cots and bassinets at shelters, has raised $35,000. Catholic Charities usa spent more than $200,000 and has taken in $10,000.

It’s a new, unsettling reality: Weather disasters have become so common and so intense aid agencies simply cannot keep up with the demand for assistance.

Looking across the American landscape, weather disasters are a reality in virtually every region. Fires and droughts routinely ravage the West and Southwest, with some cities and counties currently experiencing the worst drought in recorded history. Hurricanes are striking the South. Extreme storms with hard winds and flooding rains are occurring across much of the Midwest and into the Northeast. And the whole nation is feeling the consequences: State governments, unable to pay for the damage to their states, are looking to the federal government to bail them out; insurance companies are struggling to pay out claims and are raising insurance premiums; food prices are going up as a result of crop loss and damage caused by weather catastrophes.

Weather disasters are already impacting every American!

And they will only get worse. Both statistical trends and Bible prophecy reveal this fact. We’ve seen the figures proving declared disasters have become more common in recent years. But what does God says about the weather today?

In Amos 4, He says: “And also I withheld the rain from you when there were yet three months to the harvest. I caused it to rain upon one city and caused it not to rain upon another city; one piece of ground was rained upon, and the piece upon which it did not rain withered. So [the people of] two or three cities wandered and staggered into one city to drink water, but they were not satisfied …. I smote you with blight … and with mildew; I laid waste the multitude of your gardens and your vineyards; your fig trees and your olive trees the palmerworm … devoured; yet you did not return to Me, says the Lord” (verses 7-9, Amplified Bible).

This is an end-time prophecy specifically for America and the other nations descended from ancient Israel. This prophecy, like many others in the Bible (read, for example, Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28), shows that the weather is a measure of God’s happiness with and blessings upon man—or lack thereof. That’s right. God uses the weather as an instrument of correction, as well as an instrument through which He blesses the obedient. These weather curses are a wake-up call from God to the American people.

And it is not only weather catastrophes that Americans are facing. A multitude of terrifying hurricanes swirl over and around the United States. Like hurricane Ike, we can track them. The question is: How are you responding? One would think a rational person would be diligently searching for a safe place to go to escape these storms. Only an irrational person would ignore the terror, reject the warning signs and, like the folks in Galveston, hunker down and attempt to weather the storms alone.

Yet that’s exactly what most Americans are doing!

Finding a safe place to escape to today, however, may seem impossible. There isn’t a square inch of American soil that isn’t exposed to one crisis or another.

But that doesn’t mean there is not a place of safety for you to escape to. God has a history of protecting righteous, obedient people. He caused Noah to build an ark. He rescued the Israelites from slavery. He protected the ancient prophets. He protected His true Church throughout the centuries, when His people remained faithful to Him.

This lesson permeates the Bible: God protects righteous, obedient people who seek His protection!

The United States faces a multitude of Ike-sized hurricanes—political, geopolitical, economic and social. As they approach, are you going to search for a place of safety for you and your family? If you’re seriously interested in learning how to be protected from these terrible storms, read Repentance Toward God, and request your first issue of the Herbert W. Armstrong College Bible Correspondence Course. This literature, if you believe in it and put it into practice, will be your vehicle to God’s place of safety.