Hurricane Irma track change! (for the worse!)

[ViRGE]

5am ET update: the intensity has subsided a bit. Down to just 180mph winds.

The bad news? The NHC is increasingly confident that Irma will dodge Cuba and make landfall in Flordia. Then skirt up the coast and do it all over again. (If it's any consolation for the Keys, you'd at least be on the weaker left side!)

 

[boomerang]

To my knowledge the federal flood insurance program has never failed to pay out and I highly doubt that they ever will. There is a reason the Feds have to take it on, no insurers could handle the sheer mass of claims and the dollar amount of each one which would effectively kill the housing market in half the country and leave the other half at risk of losing everything.

And for a grand or so a year, I wouldn't call $250K of flood insurance worthless if you live in a flood prone area.

Of course it hasn't failed to pay out. Our nation has been on a borrowing spree for decades. Borrow internally with worthless promises to pay back, borrow from the outside world. My point is that we as a nation are going deeper and deeper in debt. The magic money tree ceased to supply a long, long time ago.

My worthless comment was directed at contents coverage. I see that I did not make that clear. ACV on contents nets an individual a pittance of what it will cost to replace those items regardless of who is doing the insuring.

 

[highland145]

And Cameras Company XYZ just got a boost in sales...

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I'm beginning to think the same. A co-worker tried to argue today that no matter where you live it's "always something". I had to disagree with him, I grew up in the Boston area and yea, you will get whacked with the occasional blizzard or ice-storm that knocks out power. The BIG difference is your roof is not in danger of flying off!!.

Having lived in TX, Germany, SC, GA, and Upstate NY, I can confirm: Fuck the south, fuck the heat, fuck humidity, fuck tornadoes, and fuck hurricanes. I'll take 6' of snow any day of the week over that garbage. You hunker down for snow, you work remotely, you eat a vacation day, whatever. Your house doesn't get swept away in a wind/water storm.

 

[K1052]

Having lived in TX, Germany, SC, GA, and Upstate NY, I can confirm: Fuck the south, fuck the heat, fuck humidity, fuck tornadoes, and fuck hurricanes. I'll take 6' of snow any day of the week over that garbage. You hunker down for snow, you work remotely, you eat a vacation day, whatever. Your house doesn't get swept away in a wind/water storm.

You forgot forrest and brush fires too, half the goddamned west is en fuego.

I've seen some shit Chicago winters but none of them remotely threatened to un-home me.

 

[vi edit]

You forgot forrest and brush fires too, half the goddamned west is en fuego.

I've seen some shit Chicago winters but none of them remotely threatened to un-home me.

West is on Fire. Two major hurricanes back to back. Not to be outdone, the Sun says "HOLD MY BEER" and lets loose one of the largest solar flares in over a decade and due to the CME related to it we'll get to see the northern lights across the upper half of the US tonight.

If there's a plague of locusts and some river turns to blood I'm out of here.

 

[purbeast0]

I was down in the Florida Keys in Marathon from Saturday to yesterday morning. It was scheduled for us to leave by yesterday anyways. There was a mandatory evacuation for tourists yesterday morning at sunrise, but the resort said we could leave at checkout time and we ended up leaving at 9am since we had to drive back to FLL. There was no extra traffic or anything so we made it to the airport no problem.

But the airport was a zoo and flights were being delayed due to the weather as well. We ended up sitting on the tarmac for nearly 2 hours but we ended up taking off and getting out of there. Had a bumpy flight but made it back safe.

But down in the keys the weather was fantastic. Had pretty much sun and fun every day with no rain and a little bit of cloud coverage. The fishing charter we took out on Tuesday was like the only one that went out that day because everyone was canceling, but the weather was perfect and conditions were great even 25 miles out.

But they are going to get hit hard. All places were already pretty much boarded up and closed as we headed out. I hope they don't get too screwed though.

 

[Paratus]

You forgot forrest and brush fires too, half the goddamned west is en fuego.

I've seen some shit Chicago winters but none of them remotely threatened to un-home me.

Well that's what I thoughts about areas with bad winters too, but a few years ago a nor'easter hit my folks and knocked out the power.

After a couple of days of freezing weather and no power they had to evacuate to someplace with heat.

So I've come to realize there is no place to live where you can't be forced out of your home for life threatening reasons by nature.

 

[K1052]

Well that's what I thoughts about areas with bad winters too, but a few years ago a nor'easter hit my folks and knocked out the power.

After a couple of days of freezing weather and no power they had to evacuate to someplace with heat.

So I've come to realize there is no place to live where you can't be forced out of your home for life threatening reasons by nature.

By un-home me I was more meaning literally destroy my home by fire/flood/wind etc.

One benefit of ComEd's shitty reliability in the Chicago area, especially during the 90s, was that if they wanted rate increases approved they had to drastically improve reliability and add a bunch of redundancy to the city grid which they have effectively done. They've torn the shit out of city streets to do it but it's been worthwhile. Their contractor is actually up the street from my office today pulling new cable and replacing old street vaults.

 

[K1052]

West is on Fire. Two major hurricanes back to back. Not to be outdone, the Sun says "HOLD MY BEER" and lets loose one of the largest solar flares in over a decade and due to the CME related to it we'll get to see the northern lights across the upper half of the US tonight.

If there's a plague of locusts and some river turns to blood I'm out of here.

Everybody does locusts or rivers turning to blood. I want fiery hail or darkness..something a little more unusual.

 

[Paratus]

By un-home me I was more meaning literally destroy my home by fire/flood/wind etc.

One benefit of ComEd's shitty reliability in the Chicago area, especially during the 90s, was that if they wanted rate increases approved they had to drastically improve reliability and add a bunch of redundancy to the city grid which they have effectively done. They've torn the shit out of city streets to do it but it's been worthwhile. Their contractor is actually up the street from my office today pulling new cable and replacing old street vaults.

Gotcha.

 

[zinfamous]

Everybody does locusts or rivers turning to blood. I want fiery hail or darkness..something a little more unusual.

Dogs and cats, living together? We still haven't seen that one, either.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Dogs and cats, living together? We still haven't seen that one, either.

It's been done. And it was a disaster.

 

[purbeast0]

Looking at some of the pictures of the damage that has been done to some of the Caribbean countries is really sad. It's going to take months/years to recover from this.

https://www.facebook.com/stmartinne...588073861613/1439449589442115/?type=3&theater

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

But down in the keys the weather was fantastic. Had pretty much sun and fun every day with no rain and a little bit of cloud coverage. The fishing charter we took out on Tuesday was like the only one that went out that day because everyone was canceling, but the weather was perfect and conditions were great even 25 miles out.

Imagine how horrifying it was say, 100-200 years ago before we were satellite tracking everything that happened over the ocean. You could be 48 hours from a collision with one of the most powerful storms recorded (and potentially possible, for that region) and not even know it.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Imagine how horrifying it was say, 100-200 years ago before we were satellite tracking everything that happened over the ocean. You could be 48 hours from a collision with one of the most powerful storms recorded (and potentially possible, for that region) and not even know it.

Yep. No time to evacuate, batten down the hatches, stockpile food or water, or move to higher ground. You go to sleep one night and the weather is perfect, you wake up to hell on Earth. Things are not really all that different even now on many of those small islands. Evacuation is not an option, there is no higher ground that's safe and there's only so much food and fresh water to go around. Maybe it's even worse, it's like being tied to the railroad tracks. They know what's coming and still can't do anything to get out of the way or mitigate damage.

 

[Darwin333]

Yea, I hear 'ya, just got 10 more gallons of gas, (had to buy 93, everything else sold out). This brings my stash to 45 gallons. To be honest, considering the potential impacts from this storm, that's a sorry amount. I just don't have anywhere else to keep more. Normally I get 30MPG on highway trips but with the car loaded+ the AC running that would drop a bit. Yea, the aftermath is scary, I don't know what I would do to come home and see my property destroyed.

Actually when I was talking about the aftermath I was assuming that you make it through the storm just fine with your property intact. The living conditions are just horrendous. It's hot and humid as fuck with no electricity and for the most part you are basically stuck at home. Nothing is open, you can't purchase anything, most of the roads are blocked in some way or another and you can't afford to waste the gas anyway. It's just a really shitty place to be versus taking a nice little vacation and not only not risking little things like death or severe injury but also enjoying the modern lifestyle we have become very accustomed to. Not being bored out of your mind while absolutely miserable is also a nice bonus. Personally my work goes into extreme overdrive after a storm, we have tier one passes so we convoy back in with the electric trucks as soon as the weather is safe enough for us to return but we also pre-plan multiple ways to make the non-working living conditions not suck quite as bad. Might be 12 to a house but I promise you won't mind a bit once you feel that sweet sweet air conditioning after working for 18 hours with at least half of that being outside.

 

[Darwin333]

When I see that I can't help but think of how unstable that looks. There is no cross brace beams or anything. Hurricane force winds are going to rip that apart. I guess even with cross bracing that will probably happen regardless.

They are over engineered, trust me it is anything but unstable. I do see your point but a metric shitton of engineering has gone into designing that kind of hurricane protection, at least if he went with a reputable company and has engineer stamped drawings which I assume he did.

 

[Meghan54]

Dogs and cats, living together? We still haven't seen that one, either.

 

[zinfamous]

There's a reason that dog is sleeping with one eye open. He knows when that little beast wakes up, there will be a storm of claws.

 

[Red Squirrel]

West is on Fire. Two major hurricanes back to back. Not to be outdone, the Sun says "HOLD MY BEER" and lets loose one of the largest solar flares in over a decade and due to the CME related to it we'll get to see the northern lights across the upper half of the US tonight.

If there's a plague of locusts and some river turns to blood I'm out of here.

I wish it would stop being so cloudy latetly, totally missing out on the northern lights. They're probably pretty good right now.

Got a pretty good show here last year around this time. Hopefully I can catch another and get more pics.





One of the best parts of living here, it's surreal to see it every time, never gets old.

 

[IronWing]

I wonder if people knew what hurricanes looked like prior to satellite photos.

 

[ElFenix]

Everybody does locusts or rivers turning to blood. I want fiery hail or darkness..something a little more unusual.

We had darkness, did you miss the coast to coast eclipse? A harbinger of doom.

And people thought it was pretty.

 

[Meghan54]

There's a reason that dog is sleeping with one eye open. He knows when that little beast wakes up, there will be a storm of claws.

Actually, Jessica, the Chow, raised that cat from kittenhood. Jess would let him nurse on her. I honestly believe Jess would've done almost anything for that cat.

Then again, Jess never met a cat she didn't like. Side effect of being a Chow.

 

[BUTCH1]

Actually when I was talking about the aftermath I was assuming that you make it through the storm just fine with your property intact. The living conditions are just horrendous. It's hot and humid as fuck with no electricity and for the most part you are basically stuck at home. Nothing is open, you can't purchase anything, most of the roads are blocked in some way or another and you can't afford to waste the gas anyway. It's just a really shitty place to be versus taking a nice little vacation and not only not risking little things like death or severe injury but also enjoying the modern lifestyle we have become very accustomed to. Not being bored out of your mind while absolutely miserable is also a nice bonus. Personally my work goes into extreme overdrive after a storm, we have tier one passes so we convoy back in with the electric trucks as soon as the weather is safe enough for us to return but we also pre-plan multiple ways to make the non-working living conditions not suck quite as bad. Might be 12 to a house but I promise you won't mind a bit once you feel that sweet sweet air conditioning after working for 18 hours with at least half of that being outside.

Well thanks for thinking about me, I do appreciate it. The house is cinder-block construction, but the issue is always the roof, if that starts shredding off it quickly slides downhill. Since it was built in the '70's there was no hurricane-related codes in play at that time. It has withstood up to 95MPH with only minor damage but this will probably have us around 120 for up to 6 hours. This might be asking too much not only for the house, but the pine tree's that are around it. In a small bit of good news my employer has offered us to stay at the food distribution center where I work. They have a generator the size of a semi,( mandatory for insurance), plus it's a concrete building with steel roofing. It's only 2.5 miles from home so it's a route I might just take. Although it lacks the creature comforts of a bed, I won't have to worry about getting snarled in the inevitable traffic nightmare both escaping from and returning to home, (or what's left of it). Oh, my boss,(the owner) loves to eat as much as I do so there will no problem with food, the facility has a fully-equipped test kitchen. Yea, the humidity this time of year is difficult to say the least, just hanging up shutters for 3 hours last night had me drenched in sweat+exhausted, doesn't help that I'm 60 either!.