The predictions have tightened up. Right now its coming ashore as a cat 2 or 3 at Sarasota, going thru Orlando as a Cat 1 and out around Daytona as a Tropical Storm into the Atlantic and then maybe into the Carolinas.
My brother in law drove to the University of Florida in Gainesville, which is outside the target area to pick up his daughter and take her back to the Cape Canaveral area, which is inside the path yesterday. Said there were monster traffic jams into and out of Gainesville. UF has over 50,000 students and was shut down. Shows you can't out guess these storms days early.
Trying to get into Georgia is just silly IMO, most of Florida is outside the path and will just see a major rain event. And Florida is built for rain events. Sand soil, highly porous, flat terrain, no valleys to concentrate flows into floods, short rivers straight into the oceans to carry away the water.
The Sarasota to Orlando area is in for a tough time from the winds and storm surge around Sarasota to Tampa. But we will survive it. Power outages will be a big problem.
And Finally we have the best governor in the country who started preparing people days early. A highly experienced emergency action group. Plus the utility companies have been thru this multiple times. And since Andrew the building codes have been reworked to take these storms into account.
Personally I've been thru more of these storms than I can count, starting back in Miami in the 1960's. Lived thru every one.
