carcajou

Not this size, no. Hurricanes like Irma are once-in-a-generation, which as I stated will be part of the problem.

Smaller hurricanes (Category 1 and 2, and the odd Category 3) do come and go but rarely cause much damage other than inconvenience.

Category 4 and 5 hurricanes will only hit a particular place every 20-40 years. So, people go through the smaller hurricanes, think a 4 or a 5 will just be a bit more rain and a bit more wind, and under-prepare and under-react.

Those of you still in South Florida: I advise you to get a very good PAPER or PLASTIC road map. If it hits as a 4 or a 5, many of the unconscious neighbourhood markers you are used to seeing and using to find your way around - street signs, certain trees, a neighbour's distinctive fence - could well be gone and you may get hopelessly lost in a place you've lived for 10 years. This happened quite a bit after Hurricane Andrew. Downloading a map on your phone may not work if you run out of battery and there isn't electricity yet. Having a map means you can count off streets to your house from a main arterial and find your direction that way.

As well, the poster who mentioned packing tape on the windows - supposedly the effect is that, while it won't stop the window from breaking, it will keep the broken pieces in fairly large bits (so, no shattering into a thousand pieces). I have never bothered with that though - it is a pain to get the tape off unbroken windows.

carcajou

It was rebuilt, physically, but never recovered and never again was the place it once was.

carcajou

That's correct. There was no transport, no air conditioning, and much of the place was a swamp. When the East Coast Railroad was built (Henry Flagler, closely connected to Standard Oil and the Rockefellers, spearheaded that), that made transporting large numbers of people viable, and when air conditioning could be mass produced, that made it possible for large numbers of people to actually stay without maniacal misery from the heat and humidity.

Flagler intended South Florida to be a resort for northeasterners, but it just grew and grew and grew. That is also why "The South" effectively stops at Orlando - northerners were the ones who came to South Florida because of the railroad. It wasn't built to give South Florida connectivity with "southern" cities like Atlanta etc.

People couldn't forecast hurricanes back then and when they hit, it was a total surprise.

robin1234

British government statement this morning -

"No British nationals have yet contacted us to ask for assistance."

(Foreign Office minister Alan Duncan, in the House of Commons.)

Great, so the British response has been totally satisfactory so far!

Leslie

I gave my opinion. You are free to do the same. I won't be debating you, maybe somebody else will.

Or you could just sulk.

uk_grenada

I would say a little more common than you state, but of course still not common. Also as they follow different tracks a place might go 60-70 years without a big one.

Satnav is THE solution to getting about so long as roads are generally passable, itll show the options better.

Re tape on windows, the preferred solution is to have sheets of thin explosafe plastic stuck to the windows - not at the time of course - - bit like tinting on a car but its very strong polycarbon film. Sticks the bits together even if it breaks. Also of course double glazed windows are 3-5 times stronger as the cushion of gas inside absorbs a lot of energy.

Here we dont see many in theory, 12 degrees N is considered south of the belt for insurance purposes.

uk_grenada

Thats what the british officials said after the agra massacre, 'no indians requested assistance' said the officer, 'exactly how does a 6 year old shot with a lee enfield rifle request assistance?' said the judge...

chawkins99

Well, I was able to cancel the trip and get a full refund of my non-refundable ticket.

Result!

civilservant

GA is beginning to take things seriously, we in NE GA are starting to receive patients evacuated from the Brunswick/Savannah area.

anotherlimey

Well, lots of people are at work today. It appears a lot of my colleagues are staying put, figuring they have supplies, shutters, and strapped roofs.

Lots of people are worried about having to make a long drive without guarantees of being able to get gasoline, so they don't want to get stuck on the road.

Jerseygirl

I heard cars and gas stations were running out of gas. I-95 looks like a nightmare. I wonder how long it would take to get from Miami to the state line with traffic crawling along?

On TV yesterday it showed a guy with a pick up truck...the back was full of gas containers. He was filling them up for the journey.

Lord PercyPercy

We've been running out of gas and water since Monday up here and we're on the least likely side of FL to get anything that destructive. Schools are shut to be used as shelters, so my son is pretty happy about that.

This is the first real big storm that's come our way since I came in 2006, so I've had a good run. Ready to invest in storm shutters after this though, the sound of things hitting windows last year during Matthew was mildly disconcerting but something the size of Irma could easily blow out the windows, never mind just throwing debris at them.

I hope people in Miami and elsewhere in SE Florida are able to leave quickly enough or find rock solid structures to shelter in, this is no storm to mess around with. Leave now, or dig in. Indecision is dangerous.

Rete

My sister has been on the road since 5 am this morning and is still quite a ways from Route 10 in the Panhandle. She is traveling 75 and lives well above Miami. If memory serves, Naples to South Beach was approximately 1-1/2 hours and then Naples to Ft. Myers was about 40 minutes. So a good 2 hours north of Miami on the east coast.

SarahG

We are probably going to be told to evacuate by Saturday at the latest. My neighbor has been putting hurricane shutters up all day. We have plywood that we are going to put over all the windows and the glass doors in our dining room that go out to the backyard. My kids' school is closed until at least Wednesday. I am going to pick up sandbags tomorrow, and now that my kids are off school they can help me.

dc koop

Spoke with my bro-in-law in Florida yesterday. They live on the Gulf Coast 40 miles north of Fort Myers.
He didn't see the sense in getting stuck in a traffic jam and then being hit by the storm. The local high school is next to their home and it will be open as a shelter.