Category 5 hurricane headed for Florida

[Titan Uranus]

During Rita my Uncle took every Farm-to-Market backroad between Houston and Dallas to my grandparents house in Fort Worth, avoiding the state highways and Interstates. When he rolled in there were people who hadn't gotten past Conroe in the 6 hrs it took for him to get there.

There's a reason why me and the SO have 3 different printed routes to her (mother's) family property in Northern New Hampshire from DC. Everyone will gravitate to the Interstates and highways in an emergency

In reference to this, both Apple and Google maps have the option to "avoid highways", which was exceptionally useful to my friends and I on our way back from eclipse-watching in North Carolina. We avoided Atlanta traffic completely where another group of friends wound up turning around after 4 hours and camping another night.

Though it really is best if someone in your car can read a map while referencing a GPS.
It really is annoying that GPS services don't take into account the fact that everyone and their dog goes ~20 mph faster than the speed limit on back roads, without any real penalty, as far as I have ever seen.

[Flagg]

A Florida resident on the news said he was headed to Orlando with his family. When giving a press conference, one of the officials was most emphatic about the evac being mandatory, and that given that people have had plenty of warning and opportunities to leave, that they were on their own if they choose to remain and get into difficulties.

Florida says that about mandatory. But hell, no state can actually enforce it if people don't truly want to evac. Texas asked those that refused to evacuate to mark their arms with their SSN so they could be ID'd after just in case. I wonder if Florida sent such...letters out.

It's scare tactics. And evacuation zones don't always mean what many people think they mean. The fact is a good chunk of the people heading for the hills don't need to evacuate.

And they are talking about emergency services during the storm.

[Lonestar]

Florida says that about mandatory. But hell, no state can actually enforce it if people don't truly want to evac. Texas asked those that refused to evacuate to mark their arms with their SSN so they could be ID'd after just in case. I wonder if Florida sent such...letters out.

It was one town(Rockport) and it was the Mayor who verbalized it, no letters were sent out. I don't know why people were acting like the state was saying this with an official letterhead and everything.

[Flagg]

Florida says that about mandatory. But hell, no state can actually enforce it if people don't truly want to evac. Texas asked those that refused to evacuate to mark their arms with their SSN so they could be ID'd after just in case. I wonder if Florida sent such...letters out.

It was one town(Rockport) and it was the Mayor who verbalized it, no letters were sent out. I don't know why people were acting like the state was saying this with an official letterhead and everything.

I remember there was a meteorologist that everyone started calling "Scary Terry" because he was talking about cadaver dogs and shit. If you need to evacuate the cops or fire department will be driving down the street saying so into a loud speaker. But that idiot was saying that it was everyone in a huge county like Brevard (were I lived) but we were inland and high above sea level (for FL" and did not need to leave.

At most the local schools who opened as shelters would have sufficed but we couldn't take our dogs so we battened down the hatches and mostly just lost fence pieces. Not fun at all.

[SolarpunkFan]

Getting this through the TV.

Irma is wider than the state south of the panhandle which will affect the east AND west coasts of Florida, and there may be a possibility of it re-intensifying by landfall. The sea is already getting stirred up at Miami Beach and causing a two foot (~0.6 meter) vertical drop on the tide marks at beach from the waves just today.

They're saying it's the worst case scenario for Florida happening. That sure as hell doesn't strike me as hyperbole.

[Lonestar]

SO's Rich Aunt didn't leave New Smyrna beach on Wednesday, as I had thought. She stayed there to board up her house. She is right on the A1, the only thing separating her house from the ocean is a chest-high sand dune, and she's about a dozen lots north of Cape Canaveral National Sea Shore. The vehicle assembly building is visible from her house.

SO speaks to her aunt on a nearly daily basis(aunt has no kids and treats SO like shes her daughter). All week I've been saying "reminder her to make sure her gas tank is topped off" and I know that on Monday at least that was passed on. Guess what? As of last night she had less than half a tank of gas because she waited until the day she was going to leave(Friday) to look for gas. She only went out yesterday because she heard on the radio there were gas shortages.

Supposedly she'll be heading to Orlando to stay with her sister today. SO tried to impress upon her to check google maps first and don't just head over there on her known route, but given her complete unwillingness to follow even the simplest advice like "keep the gas tank topped off starting from a week out of landfall" I doubt she'll treat it seriously. JFC.

[Simon_Jester]

The path is now narrowed down to rolling along the north coast of Cuba (There goes my chance to ever see Havanna, although it might not get hit by the center, so not all hope is lost), then hooks north, over the keys, making landfall at the FL coast while at the same time her other side hits Bahama, and then roll north, nicely centered at the edge of the coast. Problem is that if it does only glance of Cuba, it will hit FL even harder. This thing is going to go over the FL barrier islands like an angry god with an eraser.

Wonder if Cape Canaveral will still be there afterwards.

The city of Havana will still be there; it's just going to be an utter mess for a period of time. Kennedy Space Center I am almost sure will be there; a lot of engineering money went into building that complex, and it's not like hurricanes aren't a known problem in Florida. Yes, this hurricane is bigger and hairier. And I expect building damage, maybe even severe damage. But that's not he same as "destroyed."

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Getting this through the TV.

Irma is wider than the state south of the panhandle which will affect the east AND west coasts of Florida, and there may be a possibility of it re-intensifying by landfall. The sea is already getting stirred up at Miami Beach and causing a two foot (~0.6 meter) vertical drop on the tide marks at beach from the waves just today.

They're saying it's the worst case scenario for Florida happening. That sure as hell doesn't strike me as hyperbole.

The Telegraph agrees- apparently it didn't actually hit Cuba after all.

[Flagg]

Canaveral got a bit fucked up from Jeane in 2004 which was a Cat-3. But it was just aluminum siding ripped off the Vehicle Assembly Building. The people that have to worry are the ones in mobile homes, in low lying areas, on the ocean/barrier islands, and anyone getting the eye wall. The eye wall isn't wide enough to fuck up the whole state. There will be tons of flooding and structural damage, especially on the east coast. But the real danger will be the aftermath due to FEMA being stretched too thin to handle this.

Even if Irma goes right through the middle of the state, the East coast is fucked more since they will get the northeast corner of the eye wall which is the worst, but the storm will start dying down by the time it gets to central Florida.

[Elheru Aran]

Practically the *whole* state of Florida is a 'low lying area'. Miami for example is basically at sea level. A good storm surge and the city's gone.

Savannah at least was built mostly on a plateau above sea level, or the historic area was. It's a good twenty feet or so above the normal level of the sea. It's expanded enough that much of it is lower, but a lot of that is well inland. The downside is that the marshes of the various rivers surrounding the area practically guarantee a flood. The condos I lived in one year with my family were right by one. Lots of senior citizens in there...

[Flagg]

Practically the *whole* state of Florida is a 'low lying area'. Miami for example is basically at sea level. A good storm surge and the city's gone.

Savannah at least was built mostly on a plateau above sea level, or the historic area was. It's a good twenty feet or so above the normal level of the sea. It's expanded enough that much of it is lower, but a lot of that is well inland. The downside is that the marshes of the various rivers surrounding the area practically guarantee a flood. The condos I lived in one year with my family were right by one. Lots of senior citizens in there...

I'm talking about flood plains. There are entire communities built on them that require pumps to keep water out virtually 24/7. There are other areas that have very good drainage due to canals that were built decades ago to drain swamps (and flood plains) farther west of the more eastern areas that make up most of the cities on the mainland of most of Florida's east coast. Florida is a lot more than Miami, Disney, and Cape Canaveral.

[Elheru Aran]

Yeah, a lot of Florida is going to get flooded badly, mostly the east coast. Georgia's coast is steeper IIRC, but then South Carolina flattens out a bit. But by the time it's that far north it'll be a shadow of what it was when it hit Florida. Pretty big shadow still, mind...

[Terralthra]

Tampa is another city that received warnings about vulnerability to storm surges and flooding from a major hurricane, but has not taken steps to address it (just like Houston didn't). Also, there are a bunch of skyscrapers built practically oceanside in Miami that petitioned to ignore the post-Andrew building codes requiring impact-resistant glass, etc. Guess we're about to see what happens when you ignore warnings while building cities.

[aerius]

The only good news is Irma made a closer pass on Cuba than forecast and lost a lot of strength & size, plus there's some unfavourable conditions in the forecast path. The bad news is she's still a cat 3 and forecast to make landfall in Florida as a cat 4. Bunch of idiots on the Florida Keys didn't evacuate, depending on the course Irma takes, we might never find their bodies.

[aerius]

Back up to Cat 4 as of the 2am NHC advisory.

[Flagg]

The only good news is Irma made a closer pass on Cuba than forecast and lost a lot of strength & size, plus there's some unfavourable conditions in the forecast path. The bad news is she's still a cat 3 and forecast to make landfall in Florida as a cat 4. Bunch of idiots on the Florida Keys didn't evacuate, depending on the course Irma takes, we might never find their bodies.

No great loss.

[The Romulan Republic]

The only good news is Irma made a closer pass on Cuba than forecast and lost a lot of strength & size, plus there's some unfavourable conditions in the forecast path. The bad news is she's still a cat 3 and forecast to make landfall in Florida as a cat 4. Bunch of idiots on the Florida Keys didn't evacuate, depending on the course Irma takes, we might never find their bodies.

I'd hesitate to call it swinging closer to Cuba "good" news.

Good for Floridians, maybe, but pretty shitty for Cubans I imagine.

[Elheru Aran]

Currently (well, as of last time I checked, which was a couple hours ago): it's a cat 2, over the middle of Florida and headed towards Tampa. Miami can't have been TOO badly damaged as their airport was expecting to resume limited service starting Monday, IIRC.

[Broomstick]

An airport is basically a flat slab of land that is relatively easy to clear of debris.

That's different than buildings with roofs ripped off, collapsed construction cranes, flood damage, etc.

And the latest I heard is that they'll be assessing damage today and it's Tuesday that is the earliest they'll resume passenger service.

Apparently there's been a lot of water damage that will impact passenger services. If the runway is intact aid flights could arrive and depart (sort of like what was done after Haiti's earthquake) but that's different than accommodating the general public.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I'm surprised how quickly it's dropped down the scale, though even a cat-1 has winds going nearly 100 mph.

[LaCroix]

I'm surprised how quickly it's dropped down the scale, though even a cat-1 has winds going nearly 100 mph.

It's like a grinding wheel - the harder you press down on something with it, the quicker it slows down. This does mean that it has dumped a LOT of energy into the first impact sites, though. Hope the loss of life and limb stays as low as it is currently reported.

edit: I just realized that the huge storm I was caught by this summer, with trees toppling, roofs damaged, torrenting rain... Was just BARELY a cat-1.
Considering how terrifying that thing already had been, I even less want to be anywhere close to a cat 5 making landfall as I did before.

[wautd]

So am I naive to hope that the same people who wanted less government/less money to FEMA will change their mind after this disaster?

[Simon_Jester]

A few of them might, and it wouldn't take many to have significant effects.

The trick is that the Republican Party seems to have learned from Katrina how NOT to actually look as though they're getting in the way of disaster relief. I suspect that Trump isn't going to take nearly as many hits over Harvey and Irma as Dubya took over Katrina.

[Broomstick]

There certainly was some howling in Clowngress over voting more money to FEMA to aid Harvey and in anticipation of Irma but for once sanity seems to have prevailed...in the short term. There are still disturbing proposals to cut disaster relief and, more important, planning and monitoring agencies down the line.

[Flagg]

A few of them might, and it wouldn't take many to have significant effects.

The trick is that the Republican Party seems to have learned from Katrina how NOT to actually look as though they're getting in the way of disaster relief. I suspect that Trump isn't going to take nearly as many hits over Harvey and Irma as Dubya took over Katrina.

Sandy. That was when the dipshit party was refusing to fund disaster relief. It's no surprise that they aren't holding back funding for red states.