Hurricane Irma Aftermath

[WTP-GC]

Well, what can you say...after a week of 24/7 news coverage, endless doomsday pontifications, mass evacuations, and great hysteria...the storm is gone. Lots of regional flooding, downed trees and power lines, but really limited structural damage. The only notable fatalities in FL were things like falling off ladders, heart attacks, and vehicles accidents (most of which has not been directly confirmed to be storm-related). Now we move onto the aftermath and cleanup.

To anyone looking at traveling to FL right now, for your sake, consider a change of plans. Southbound traffic is horrendous and gas station lines are backed up into the streets. I saw a report that roughly half of FL is without power. It will be at least another week before things begin to appear normal again.

Of course, after such an event, you begin to look around and wonder "what-if". You second-guess evacuation plans, storm prep efforts, travel plans, etc. We know of people who evacuated from areas that were supposed to take a direct hit, but they evacuated to an area that ended up being more in the path. Many places were (or are) limiting evacuees from returning until such time that the local officials could fully assess the damage. School systems, businesses, universities, etc. are extending their closures day-by-day, leaving many people without any ability to plan the coming days.

We didn't evacuate, and it was absolutely the right call. That was right for us, but certainly not right for everyone. We had a backup plan, generator, plenty of gas, and were well prepared. Trees near your home are certainly cause for concern, but the heavily wooded terrain we live in helped to soften the blow of the wind. Overall, it was certainly a very sleepless night and tiring lead-up. But once we recover from the restlessness, we'll be all good 😉

[frankdamp]

A former colleague at Boeing went to work for Eastern Airlines and moved to the grater Miami area in the early 1970s. I visited once during a Boeing trip and saw their house.

It was a three bedroom rambler in a major development and houses were still under construction in the neighborhood. I was amazed by the construction techniques. Vertical sections of rebar were planted about every 18" in the concrete foundations after they'd been poured. Walls were made of hollow concrete blocks threaded onto the rebar with concrete "gluing" them together.

Once the wall reached the required roof height, another concrete rectangle, similar to the foundation, was poured in forms around the top of the wall, also with horizontal rebar going all around it.

Outside doors all opened outwards so the wind couldn't blow them in. The development got hit pretty hard a few years later, but damage was minimal. I don't know if that type of design/construction was common in Florida.

[Dance_Chick]

Tell the people who are hourly workers who had to flee, so won't be getting a paycheck, that they dodged a bullet. Bet they were living paycheck to paycheck....now they have no income. Plus, it costs money to flee...bet it was money they really didn't have. Tell the small businesses who depended on a constant cash flow/customer base to stay in business. Now, they'll probably lose their businesses because they had to flee, so no income flow. And, this doesn't take into account any property that might be destroyed. With higher hurricane deductibles, simply coming up with $5,000 or $10,000 for the deductible will hurt a lot of people.

[rhagfo]

No hype the Keys took a hard hit for sure!

[lizzie]

For those of you who are concerned about media over-hype, Get A Life! If you think we "dodged a bullet" please come on down and help us clean up. Better yet get out your wallets and send money to those folks still in shelters and those with no homes to return to. Did you hear about the 5 seniors who died in a nursing home? How about all the commercial fishing boats tossed ashore. Am I mad? You bet I am. lizzie

[PawPaw_n_Gram]

Expected that there would be flooding impacting traffic flow north of a hurricane coming ashore.

I grew up in southern Arkansas, most times I've seen US-82 or I-20 closed was flooding due to heavy rainfall upstream of the Red or Ouachita rivers from hurricanes hitting Texas or Louisiana.

[WTP-GC]

And just when you thought it couldn't get worse...BAM! I-75 getting shutdown north in North Central FL due to rising river level.

[Veebyes]

Yes, FL did dodge a bullet. Extreme damage was confined to a very small area compared to what could have been with only a very small course change of the storm. A very big deal to those in the keys who lost everything in the Keys but even there, severe damage was confined to the relatively small area that the eye wall, where the most severe wind is, went over.

A quick glance at http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ tells you how far hurricane force winds extend from center in each direction. Armed with this valuable information you can get an idea of if you will experience hurricane force winds in your area.

As far as wind damage, not surge, goes if you live in a hurricane prone area & do not spend the extra money to build to withstand a hurricane, chances are that even a minor storm is going to blow your house away. How many houses in FL have been built or reinforced to hurricane code?

Regarding weather people, I don't pay much attention to them. A few years ago a hurricane was bearing down on Bermuda. Since nothing was threatening the US at the time a TV crew from a certain channel showed up to cover what looked like a sure storm hit.

It didn't happen. Like Irma there was a slight course change which made all the difference in the world. We barely got storm force winds. Undeterred we hear that this TV crew gets ahold of a large fan placed off camera to create some wind for their live 'reports'. Made themselves look stupid with the calm ocean waters in the background.

[WTP-GC]

If you want to see the damage to the Keys, here's a clicky for you. Zoom into the Keys region...

[Ralph_Cramden]

2012Coleman wrote:

And to the person who thinks Florida dodged a bullet, I'm thinking a whole lot of people coming back to flooded houses or trees smashed through roofs in my neighborhood would most likely disagree.

Unless the media and FEMA are just blowing smoke, 25% of homes in the Keys totally destroyed, 65% have major damage, 90% some amount of damage.

Source ARTICLE

Of course, it goes on to be disputed.

Monroe County officials on Tuesday night were quick to counter FEMA estimates, saying no official estimates of percentages or dollar amounts of damages had been done.

"Things look real damaged from the air, but when you clear the trees and all the debris, it’s not much damage to the houses," Monroe County Commissioner Heather Carruthers said in a statement released by the county Tuesday night.


One things for sure, if they are even 1/2 accurate that's not really dodging any bullets.

[WTP-GC]

We actually found ourselves watching Weather Nation and local news broadcasts more than anything. Once in a while, we'd flip over to the Weather Channel if we needed to lighten the mood a little. One of my favorite moments was watching some woman broadcaster on scene in Tampa before the storm hit, and she was showing a repeating loop of a flimsy roof that was getting blown off some sort of shed or parking structure. She kept saying that she didn't know the age of the roof, condition of the roof, who it belonged to, the type of roof, the type of structure, etc. And then she finished with: "that was during the daylight hours, and now this is night time" (as she was standing in the dark). Well duh. Another good moment was a male broadcaster standing on the beach in a full rainsuit while holding onto a rope tether. There were teenage looking boys in the background frolicking around trying to get some camera action. Just love it.

Yes, FL dodged the bullet that was forecasted 5 days before the storm. They were reporting that this could potentially be a CAT6 hurricane, but as days went on, it became apparent that it wasn't going to be as bad as the weather people were hoping. So I don't really believe we dodged anything...because we got what we were going to get anyway.

[Dog_Trainer]

Fl. Dodged the bullet in the respect of human life loss many lives were saved by evacuations. The media is the media what can you say or do they will always spin a disaster into what ever drama that keeps us glued to the tv.
Fl. did not doge the bullet as far as loss of property. The losses will be in the billions and the american taxpayers will fund much of the rebuilding as we should. Couple Irma and Harvey and the losses are staggering. These storms have created a major drain on the US economy.

[Cloud_Dancer]

Stephanie Abrams, yeah toss her, for getting emotional/crying while describing the eclipse. I'm going back to watching NASCAR, they talk about the weather in a very adult way......:B

[2012Coleman]

someone wrote:
People left their jobs, communities, volunteer services, etc. all just to flee a storm that didn't need to be fled

Yea - hindsight is always 20/20.

And to the person who thinks Florida dodged a bullet, I'm thinking a whole lot of people coming back to flooded houses or trees smashed through roofs in my neighborhood would most likely disagree.

[Ralph_Cramden]

Aridon wrote:


One final thing, the weather channel has been a joke for decades. Use weather nation or one of the local feeds for weather sans drama.

LOL, that's the truth right there.

They really became a joke when they started naming thunderstorms or cold fronts. What's next, naming individual clouds lol?
They do however have better looking gals than WeatherNation, that's important. I certainly would not toss that Stephanie what's her name out for eating crackers.

[westend]

Yeah, bullets dodged. We live in tornado country and typically get a couple of intense thunderstorms each year. It pays to know what is happening and online radar w/NWS makes it fairly easy to dodge bullets.

When my kids were young, the local emergency service people thought it a good idea to start the sirens during nearly every heavy thunder storm. Scared the little girl all to heck. The TV news people thought it was a good thing to add in their own hyperbole. Eventually, nobody paid any attention to the sirens and the media folks backed off. Things are now back to normal.

Hopes and prayers out to all those affected by the recent hurricanes. The Caribbean looks to be a real mess.