Hurricane Irma

[W2R]

Hurricane season is not over. Jose is forecast to be approaching Florida 5 days from now.

Of course it's not, you're right. Thus far I am not unduly concerned about Jose (see model output from an hour or two ago, attached, which I think is pretty encouraging). Apparently Jose is expected to lessen to a Cat 1 soon due to sheer, and its track seems to be that of a fish storm. However there is another tropical disturbance closer to Africa and headed westward. As always, we need to stay vigilant at this time of year.

 

[W2R]

Glad it was not as bad as it could have been. I am completely totally fed up with the cliche shot of weather reporter standing out in hazardous conditions to show what I don't know. Camera operator is probable at even more risk. A shot from a protected location with clear audio would be more effective.

What really bugs me is web cams where you have to wait through 30+ seconds of commercial to see maybe 15 seconds of footage, and that footage is purposely severely blurred out except in the very middle in order to make it seem worse than it really was.

I want my 30 seconds of wasted time back.

As for the guys reporting out in the storm, I think the point is that some people have an almost irrepressible desire to go out in it to see what it is like. That's so dangerous. Anyway, maybe seeing Jim Cantore or someone like that out in the storm, will deter some people from acting on their desire to experience it themselves. I am not worried about Cantore because he has been doing this since dirt was young and knows what he is doing, AFAIK.

 

[audreyh1]

I was so pleased and relieved to see that Irma is no longer a hurricane! She has lessened overnight, and is now a tropical storm. Whew. Hopefully there will not be much further damage.

When winds at my Dad's house in GA drop below 30 I'll be a lot happier.

I think their power went out this morning.

 

[Bestwifeever]

Glad it was not as bad as it could have been. I am completely totally fed up with the cliche shot of weather reporter standing out in hazardous conditions to show what I don't know. Camera operator is probable at even more risk. A shot from a protected location with clear audio would be more effective.

Even better (by which I mean worse) are the reporters standing outside on the hotel patio overlooking the water at night. So you can't even see anything. And there are raindrops all over the camera lens. So you can't even see anything. And the Weather Channel/CNN/etc screen has a third of the image covered up by info bars at the bottom. So you can't even see anything. God help us if there really was some danger they were reporting on that we needed to see. Almost all the weather reporting has turned into a form of the boy who called wolf, anyway (Harvey and Irma deserved the coverage, but we get the local stations taking over all the Chicago evening shows when there is a tornado reported 70 miles away with a very remote possibility of affecting this area, just to keep up with each other. At some point people just tune out).

 

[Breedlove]

Can't validate this but some of our friends in Palm Beach are saying some of the photos the weather channel is showing is from past hurricanes and not from Irma . They appear to be fine! Could some of this be fake news ?

 

[MichaelB]

I have lots of family and friends in South Florida, and we live there when it's not hurricane season. It was real, and nasty. Luckily, the worst case did not happen.

 

[pb4uski]

We headed from Pensacola, FL to San Antonio, TX today (not a hurricane evac, just time to go back home). We counted 217 utility trucks headed Eastbound on I-10 and I-12 during our 11 hour trip. I'm sure they will stage in Tallahassee or Panama City until the storm has passed, then get to work.

We were traveling on I-84 West in Connecticut on Saturday and there was a small convoy of tree removal trucks heading towar Florida.

From what we can gather from friends and family in Naples, Ft. Myers, Sarasota and tampa area the damage was mostly downed trees, limbs, etc. and power outages.... no structural damage or even broken glass. Lucky... could have been a lot worse and probably is for people nearer to the ocean.

 

[Breedlove]

I really think Florida is going to make out a whole lot better then our news is saying . They really did a lot of things right , people learned from Harvey !

 

[Lisa99]

The early scare reports that Key West is "devastated is totally wrong. Just saw a CNN video that shows trees down and some flooding but even some of the oldest buildings didn't have damage.

We rode it out in The Villages and other than sections of no power, some flooding on the historic side and downed trees, the town is fine. We got lucky but I'm so over television news. Oh and one roof blew off on an addition. Who knows whether it was to code...

 

[RunningBum]

What really bugs me is web cams where you have to wait through 30+ seconds of commercial to see maybe 15 seconds of footage, and that footage is purposely severely blurred out except in the very middle in order to make it seem worse than it really was.

I want my 30 seconds of wasted time back.

As for the guys reporting out in the storm, I think the point is that some people have an almost irrepressible desire to go out in it to see what it is like. That's so dangerous. Anyway, maybe seeing Jim Cantore or someone like that out in the storm, will deter some people from acting on their desire to experience it themselves. I am not worried about Cantore because he has been doing this since dirt was young and knows what he is doing, AFAIK.

I think the sides are blurred out when the source is 3x4 (think non-HD) vs 9x16, or from a cell phone video taken vertically rather than horizontally. That's what I've always seen anyway.

The commercials really are getting worse. To see one 20 second highlight clip on ESPN you now have to watch a full 30 second commercial. Or in my case, skip it all.

And I fully agree with all on the reporters out in the storm. It's absurd, and someone really will get hurt, and you really can't tell all that much. Get some good footage taken from a shelter of some kind instead, and let the reporter do a voice over where you can hear them more clearly. Cantore is as much to blame for this as anyone, and he may know what he's doing, or he may find out he's not as invulnerable as he thinks.

 

[Breedlove]

This is what some of our Floridian friends were saying some of the still photos the news is showing is from another Hurricane from years ago ....................... God Bless Florida !

 

[W2R]

The early scare reports that Key West is "devastated is totally wrong. Just saw a CNN video that shows trees down and some flooding but even some of the oldest buildings didn't have damage.

We rode it out in The Villages and other than sections of no power, some flooding on the historic side and downed trees, the town is fine. We got lucky but I'm so over television news. Oh and one roof blew off on an addition. Who knows whether it was to code...

So glad The Villages fared this well! I was concerned, because I read (here? somewhere?) that some of the older structures there are manufactured or mobile homes and might be more susceptible to damage.

You said, "I'm so over television news", and I certainly agree. +10000

 

[W2R]

I think the sides are blurred out when the source is 3x4 (think non-HD) vs 9x16, or from a cell phone video taken vertically rather than horizontally. That's what I've always seen anyway.

OH! That makes sense. Thanks. I didn't think of that, and instead thought they were purposely doing it to make things seem worse.

Really I'd rather just see the actual footage, with broad black borders, if it doesn't fill the screen. But, maybe this seems more realistic to some people.

 

[bigcmagor]

I'm told my neighbor's roof is scattered over my Cape Coral property. Much of it went through the pool cage screens and into the pool. On the other side, her seawall caved in, the pool cage is gone and had a partial roof collapse. It's strange since my neighbor cut out the corner screens on both of our cages to lessen the resistance. Hers is gone and mine survived. Roof damage on both sides too and mine is intact. Two seawalls across the street gave way too. I'm told none of the houses flooded from the surge anyway, which is the best news. Now waiting for power to be restored so I can go inspect it all myself. Whew.

 

[Lawrencewendall]

Key West Info

https://www.facebook.com/Amberkeywe...f_t=comment_mention&notif_id=1505134811661136

 

[Blue Collar Guy]

lets see: 1,000,000 man hours to fix electric/17,000 workers . 58 hours per man, 12 hour productive shifts, 5 days. Thats for 90 % of the people. The other 10 % will wait 3 weeks. If I was a resident of Florida. I would be getting my power back the day after Thanksgiving. My home would have been looted by now, 3 times. And I would have gotten hit by a coconut as I went to survey the damage.

 

[Breedlove]

You are going to be surprised , electricity will be up real soon . As long as no flooding these guys will be able to go pretty fast .

The video of the Keys did not look as bad as I thought it would , my concern is how much damage to Highway 1 . Travel trailers , temporary buildings destroyed . These are common to just about any Cat 1 tornado or hurricane.

 

[Revlefty]

Thank God, our place in Bradenton Florida sustained no damage. The garbage cans didn't even blow away. The only problem is that a dying palm tree in the front yard still didn't blow down, so I'll have to pay someone to cut it down! Oh, well, if that is the only expense, I'm really thankful.

 

[Sunset]

Thank God, our place in Bradenton Florida sustained no damage. The garbage cans didn't even blow away. The only problem is that a dying palm tree in the front yard still didn't blow down, so I'll have to pay someone to cut it down! Oh, well, if that is the only expense, I'm really thankful.

Apply to FEMA for some relief $$$$ with removing trees

 

[imoldernu]

Two things....

Since there never was coverage of inland FL (except for Orlando) we were prepared for the worst. Just received a phone call.. very minor damage to our mfg. home... some damage to the car port, and a few minor items. Our community never even lost power. (our worst case scenario was damage and removal of the home, at a probable cost of $15K)... some relief.

Re: the Villages.
When we moved to Lake Griffin Harbor in 1990, the Villages didn't exist. On the east side of rte 441, the over-55 community was "Orange Blossom Gardens"... 900 Manufactured Homes. While we were moving in to our park, they were expanding on the west side of 441... what turned in to The Villages. (Same development) We watched it grow to near what it is today... 150,000+ inhabitants. It was our once a week (free) entertainment center, as we'd drive the 15 miles to go to town square concerts, shows and square dancing.
Am pretty sure those 900 mfg. homes are the only ones in "The Villages".

 

[YakGrl]

West Palm Beach - We had about a day and a half of high winds. We loss power at my townhouse for most of the night, but we were thrilled when it came back on. My mother and sister stayed with me during the hurricane, and their apartments don't have power now. They will be staying until they get power back on.
My office is closed due to lack of power. I will be trying to work from home.
Over 500,000 without power in Palm Beach county. It could be a long time before restoration is complete. Just hoping for the best and tremendously grateful we only had tropical storm force winds and no flooding in my neighborhood. We were well prepared, but I am so thankful that we didn't get the possible Cat 4-5 predicted.
We have trees and limbs down but no home damage near me.

 

[NW-Bound]

My wife's nephew lives in Fort Lauderdale. We heard from SIL that his house has a lot of water coming from the roof. Sounded like his roof got damaged, but we did not know any detail. I don't think Fort Lauderdale got hit that bad, so perhaps his roof was weak to start out with. Not sure if he lost power, but SIL could not call him recently so perhaps the power is out and he cannot charge his phone.

 

[socca]

19:15 EST Sarasota update:
+ alternating between high tropical storm / low hurricane conditions
+ power is flickering but still on (good job, FPL!!)

My power went out after I posted this.

The power is back on after being out for about 24 hours. Thanks, FPL!

Sunday evening 8 PM to midnight was intense. I stood on the porch and watched Cat 1 hurricane-force winds rake the lake. I felt reasonably safe because my porch is on the SW side of the house, and the winds were from the NE.

I walked around local neighborhoods today. Lots of trees down, but only a tiny amount of structural damage. Sarasota missed a bullet!

 

[Moemg]

We evacuated to a hotel inland.Today we checked on our house it was fine just a few shingles down and no power so we returned to the hotel .Hopefully we will get power soon.

 

[OnIslandTime]

After spending most of the day Saturday watching the ever rising forecast storm surge levels for Sanibel, yesterday was soooo long. Thinking about 10+ feet of water above ground level at/in our ground level house was nauseating. Even worse was the thought that if the magnitude of the storm was as predicted, rebuilding would take years. We would literally be in line behind the condo complexes and big $$$ houses to get rebuilt. We were continually watching the local news online so by the time we went to bed last night, we knew that it had not been nearly as bad as the predictions...Irma stayed over land and lost a lot of strength pretty quickly and we wound up on the "softer" west side. This afternoon our home watch person reported that our place had no damage at all. We'll sleep better tonight for sure!