Hoping any Tilders in central and northwest Florida are getting out of the way of this impending disaster. It's looking like Hurricane Milton will make landfall in Tampa Bay, which is one of the...
Hoping any Tilders in central and northwest Florida are getting out of the way of this impending disaster. It's looking like Hurricane Milton will make landfall in Tampa Bay, which is one of the most vulnerable places in the U.S. with respect to storm surge.
The Tampa area is still recovering from Hurricane Helene's storm surge. Hurricane Milton is likely to be much worse. More Atlantic storms are coming, with at least another seven weeks of hurricane season to go.
The Gulf of Mexico is running 4 °C warmer than expected for this time of year, and climate change is having predictable effects on storm intensification. Florida Gov. DeSantis is denying at full volume.
This storm looks to be a total disaster. I moved out of that area last year, but all of my friends and family are still there and none of them were able to evacuate far enough for my liking. The...
This storm looks to be a total disaster. I moved out of that area last year, but all of my friends and family are still there and none of them were able to evacuate far enough for my liking. The routes going north are few and apparently at a stand still and all the gas stations are out of gas. I don't have anything constructive to add other than I feel intense dread and weirdly guilty that I alone in my family am in relative safety.
I have friends that waited until the middle of the night to leave last night. Traffic had cleared up a good bit. My boss left a message in Slack at 3:48 AM that they were heading north at the...
I have friends that waited until the middle of the night to leave last night. Traffic had cleared up a good bit. My boss left a message in Slack at 3:48 AM that they were heading north at the time.
I have a lot of friends and coworkers in St Pete; where I resided for many years until '21. Thankfully my family is inland. So long as the Alifia doesn't flood, they should be safe from water. Also they all have cinder block construction, so not too concerned by the likely Cat 3 winds they'll receive.
I was in downtown St Pete all last week for work and hung around for some weekend activities with friends. I watched the mood shift from a bit of shock in the aftermath of Helene to anxiety and dread for Milton.
The destruction already brought by Helene was wild. I spent 40 years in Florida. Nearly 25 in the Tampa Bay area, mostly in St Pete. I've certainly never seen it anything like that there. I have friends that lost their homes, vehicles, expensive collections of tools and equipment for their livelihood, furniture, and cherished belongings of sentimental value. It sucks. I'm hoping I don't get calls or texts about any of them losing their lives.
I've personally been scared of only two prior storms: Charlie and Irma. I would be fleeing from Milton for sure. I'm worried from 400+ miles north.
I hope anyone that is ordered to evacuate does so.
It's weird that I keep seeing people saying that cinderblock homes should be safe when everything I have always been told is that frame houses actually handle high winds better than block because...
It's weird that I keep seeing people saying that cinderblock homes should be safe when everything I have always been told is that frame houses actually handle high winds better than block because of their ability to flex. We shall see.
I was there for over 40 years, so I have been through a bunch of bunch of hurricanes, but this looks to be worse than anything I was in. It is entirely possible that I will end up having one or more of them moving up here with me while their homes are rebuilt or we find them somewhere new to live.
Generally, anything built after 1992 in Florida should be significantly stronger than stuff built before that, regardless of materials. This is because building codes changed significantly with...
Generally, anything built after 1992 in Florida should be significantly stronger than stuff built before that, regardless of materials. This is because building codes changed significantly with the devastation brought by Hurricane Andrew in 92. Most storm damage is caused by storm surge and flooding, but with Andrew it was mostly the wind. Hence the improvement in building codes.
As for the homes built prior to 92, well that's when the materials matter most I would imagine. In theory, solid materials like concrete should resist better than wood-frame building. Not because the wood is weak or anything, but because the joints used in wood constructions were often the failure points seen in the aftermath of Andrew. Things like windows and doors flying off, or roofs detaching from the rest of the home, or houses lifting off their foundations were some of the main takeaways from Andrew's wake.
I've been wrong about many things in my time on this planet.
It's weird that I keep seeing people saying that cinderblock homes should be safe when everything I have always been told is that frame houses actually handle high winds better than block because of their ability to flex.
I've been wrong about many things in my time on this planet.
The anecdotes about Hugo up in SC were that cinderblock homes built in the 40s handled it better than stick frames built forty years later. It wouldn’t surprise me if newer stick frames were...
The anecdotes about Hugo up in SC were that cinderblock homes built in the 40s handled it better than stick frames built forty years later. It wouldn’t surprise me if newer stick frames were better, or if they handled different types of damage differently.
I imagine it is probably a combination of both, but also that SC construction in the 80s was probably not nearly as focused on storm mitigation as it was in places like Florida. As mentioned by...
I imagine it is probably a combination of both, but also that SC construction in the 80s was probably not nearly as focused on storm mitigation as it was in places like Florida. As mentioned by another poster, in the early 90s there was a shift to stricter building codes that were required for new construction afterwards that helped a great deal. I actually recall the codes being updated in the mid 80s in FL as well because my parents build our home then and it made our home differ significantly in construction to the rest of the neighborhood.
My family evacuated for Irma back in 2017 and I can sympathize with the stress that it brings. Never faced so much traffic in my life. Took all evening and night to go a distance that normally...
My family evacuated for Irma back in 2017 and I can sympathize with the stress that it brings. Never faced so much traffic in my life. Took all evening and night to go a distance that normally takes like four hours tops.
As for your family, do they live somewhere close to the water? The storm surge is the really scary part of these storms. As long as they aren't within a few blocks of the ocean, or immediately next to a canal or something, then they should hopefully be safe. Still best to evacuate, of course, but sometimes you just can't convince someone to leave their home no matter what.
My mother lives in a condo on the intercoastal, so she 100% has to evacuate. My brother lives about half a mile inland. Generally storm surge shouldn't be an issue there, but this storm has the...
My mother lives in a condo on the intercoastal, so she 100% has to evacuate. My brother lives about half a mile inland. Generally storm surge shouldn't be an issue there, but this storm has the potential to invalidate previous precedent. My sister is in higher ground in St Pete proper, so the surge won't affect her. All that being said, cat3+ winds will likely be catastrophic to much of the area so I am still very worried for them all.
I'm in touch with a close friend who lives just north of Tampa, and couldn't evacuate before the roads got too jammed. She's in a new construction house, just outside the evacuation zone, so I'm...
I'm in touch with a close friend who lives just north of Tampa, and couldn't evacuate before the roads got too jammed. She's in a new construction house, just outside the evacuation zone, so I'm hoping that will keep her safe. She's dealing with an elderly parent with ongoing health needs, and it's a frightening situation to be in.
Hope everyone that is in the way and can get out, got out. Unfortunately, one of my best friends is sitting in a hotel room in Orlando because his job wants him to be able to get their incredibly...
Hoping any Tilders in central and northwest Florida are getting out of the way of this impending disaster. It's looking like Hurricane Milton will make landfall in Tampa Bay, which is one of the most vulnerable places in the U.S. with respect to storm surge.
Hope everyone that is in the way and can get out, got out.
Unfortunately, one of my best friends is sitting in a hotel room in Orlando because his job wants him to be able to get their incredibly non-essential businesses back up and running as soon as possible. Ain't capitalism grand?
This is just after another best friend of mine got hit by Helene in North Carolina and only just got power back (and therefore water as he has a well pump) yesterday. It's not a good time to be a friend of mine.
Not sure if your friend is local to anywhere that experiences hurricanes, but he should be more than safe in his hotel room, it'll just be loud and wet and dark and feel a bit ominous for a few...
Not sure if your friend is local to anywhere that experiences hurricanes, but he should be more than safe in his hotel room, it'll just be loud and wet and dark and feel a bit ominous for a few hours while the storm passes tomorrow night and Thursday morning. The hotels in Orlando are familiar with storms like this and should be plenty safe for people to ride it out in. The hotel will probably lose power for anywhere from a few hours to a few days, but should otherwise be fine.
(I say this to hopefully reassure you and your friend as someone who has dealt with many hurricanes. Apologies if it sounds dismissive of your concerns!)
Mirror: https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/investing/commodities/2024/10/07/hurricane-milton-explodes-to-category-5-on-a-path-toward-florida/ (BNN Bloomberg is the official Bell Canada + Bloomberg...
Plugging the excellent blog www.theeyewall.com for anyone in the Caribbean, Gulf, or nearby areas. Or just anyone interested in keeping track of extreme weather events. They do a great job of...
Plugging the excellent blog www.theeyewall.com for anyone in the Caribbean, Gulf, or nearby areas. Or just anyone interested in keeping track of extreme weather events. They do a great job of explaining exactly what's happening in layman's terms and what that means for different soon-to-be-affected areas.
Milton as a storm is both A) near record-breaking in terms of how fast it developed, how far west it developed, and how intense it is, and B) the exact kind of storm that is becoming increasingly common as the Atlantic Ocean warms. Seems like every year now there's a record-breaking storm or two in the Caribbean, only question is where's it gonna hit.
If these storms are becoming more and more common, and more and more dangerous, we need stronger national and state policy to resettle people who are living in areas that are going to be flooded/destroyed. We also need more physical infrastructure to mitigate the effects of flooding, like water-absorbing swamplands instead of concrete wastelands, but that doesn't do anything about the wind.
There is plenty of land in this country. It is extremely easy to build housing when regressive NIMBY zoning laws are bypassed. If coastal Florida is truly becoming hurricane-central, and this is an annual recurrence, we should leave it for greener pastures. The loss of life from this hurricane sounds like it will be immense, and the loss of infrastructure is going to be costly. Those are tax dollars being spent on repairing roads and bridges that probably shouldn't exist instead of giving people public healthcare. Inefficient and bad for society.
Insurers are already (fairly) jacking up prices in flood-risky areas, which is an economic incentive to NOT LIVE IN FLOOD ZONES, but the government needs to work to provide more and better alternatives to living in places less subject to horrible natural disasters. Like more housing in the many temperate parts of the country that don't suffer this amount of damage on a regular basis.
I thought for a while about how to reply to your comment, and I mostly agree with the overall sentiment that building in a flood zone is no bueno and our governments should really step up to help...
I thought for a while about how to reply to your comment, and I mostly agree with the overall sentiment that building in a flood zone is no bueno and our governments should really step up to help people at least have the ability to move elsewhere. Hell, I personally believe that no one should own beachfront property and that all beaches in Florida should belong to the public (a la Canaveral National Seashore). That would drastically reduce the storm surge damage caused by storms like Milton and Helene (and Ian and Irma and Michael and...) which would lessen the need to relocate so many people to more temperate areas of the country.
But the problem is that these storms are changing in unpredictable ways. Most people wouldn't expect the mountains of NC to be affected by hurricanes, and yet Helene wrecked them a week ago. These storms are becoming increasingly volatile and making forays deeper and deeper into land, so you'd have to relocate people quite a long ways from the coast to truly stop hurricane damage. Milton too, besides intensifying so rapidly, is almost unprecedented in just how far west it developed before heading east towards Florida. Basically we just don't know exactly what these future storms will bring other than increased development speeds, intensity, and frequency.
Like you, I think the emphasis of government entities should be more on A) making it easier for those in these regions to move elsewhere if they desire, and B) improving storm drainage and flood prevention systems in areas likely to experience these big storms (which is an area that has expanded significantly in the last couple decades and now probably includes most southeastern states). That last part is the trickiest I feel, since trying to convince people to spend millions of dollars on infrastructure to prevent flooding that has never happened before sounds like an uphill battle. Only the conditions have changed, and what was once unheard of is now becoming the norm, like hurricanes in the mountains 200+ miles away from the coast.
I think everyone knows that rivers flood and there are many examples of this, so it’s a known risk in some broad sense. And yet, in practice, people are often surprised by more severe flooding...
I think everyone knows that rivers flood and there are many examples of this, so it’s a known risk in some broad sense. And yet, in practice, people are often surprised by more severe flooding than they expected. There are existing flood control measures and often it’s assumed that they should be enough.
I’m remembering the bad flooding in Vermont a few years ago, and also flooding on the Susquehanna that devastated some communities in upstate New York.
One trend is that houses are getting more expensive all the time and they’re built in more places, so severe weather is bound to hit something.
Good point about houses getting more expensive. But as for rivers flooding, one thing that comes to mind is complacency. I took a disasters history class in grad school (incredible class, really...
Good point about houses getting more expensive. But as for rivers flooding, one thing that comes to mind is complacency. I took a disasters history class in grad school (incredible class, really opened my eyes to all forms of extreme weather) and one thing that stood out to me was just how often the same story about complacency would pop up.
Insert_place_here was the victim of a massive hurricane/earthquake/flood/drought/tsunami/fire and all the survivors were shocked because it had been decades or centuries since the last one of those events. If your town has literally never had a hurricane in recorded history, or that anyone alive can remember, it's damn near impossible to convince people of the dangers of a hurricane. It's like Chicken Little screaming about the sky falling or a little boy crying wolf. Except with climate change, these extreme weather phenomena are indeed happening, and with more intensity and frequency. The sky really is falling and the wolf isn't a lie, but people don't believe it.
To use a less fictional example, just look at this storm. Milton is the first major storm to make landfall in Tampa since 1921, a literal lifetime ago. The fact that some people there are choosing to ride out the storm instead of following evacuation orders is human nature, no matter how dumb that decision may seem. I'm sure someone out there is saying "meh I've lived here all my life, survived many hurricanes, I'm sure this one will be fine" because that's what happens with pretty much all of these hurricanes. It's a classic hurricane cliche along with 'more rain fell in 24/48 hours than in the past 2/3/4 months combined!' and 'it looks like a bomb went off' when surveying the aftermath.
Back to your river example, while everyone may know that rivers can flood, unprecedented times means unprecedented flooding. People living next to rivers may be used to it flooding a certain amount each year, and then build a little bit higher than that thinking that the extra bit of cushion will protect them. And this goes on for generations, with subsequent residents building and rebuilding as close to the river as they can without hitting the zone that floods regularly. But the problem is that these crazy weather events are no longer once in a lifetime events, and the next time that river floods it might be to never-before-seen levels, which is well past what people thought was historically safe (and had built their homes accordingly).
Unfortunately, as with many weather-related policies, building practices, and decisions, these things are often written after the fact rather than preemptively. Hurricane Andrew in 1992 forever changed Florida's building policies. Katrina in 2005 drastically altered the way FEMA handles disasters. And I have no doubt that Helene will spur new laws and regulations for states like NC and Georgia. But until these disasters hit, it's damn near impossible to convince people that something needs to be done now to prevent something that has never happened before. And even then it might still be difficult (see school shootings).
Don't hold it too much against people who are sheltering in place for Hurricane Milton. The storm intensified from a Category 1 to 5 in the space of 12 hours, leaving less than 48 hours for the...
Don't hold it too much against people who are sheltering in place for Hurricane Milton. The storm intensified from a Category 1 to 5 in the space of 12 hours, leaving less than 48 hours for the evacuation notices. There are 5.5 million people in the evacuation zones. By the time many of them got the news, the freeways were too jammed to escape and gas stations were sold out.
The increased energy and moisture in these megastorms makes the usual emergency measures untenable.
5.5 m is a LOT of people on the move.... There's also resources and logistics: what if you can't afford several days worth of gas and hotels and eating out, or if you had horses or dogs that can't...
5.5 m is a LOT of people on the move....
There's also resources and logistics: what if you can't afford several days worth of gas and hotels and eating out, or if you had horses or dogs that can't can't go with you, or there's a lot of medical equipment at home, or if they have some debilitating social anxiety or health issue that renders 12+ hours on the road more terrifying than death?
It's not ideal of course, and there are people who can evac who aren't because they really are just being stubborn etc, but we're not those people.
It's worth noting that people do not need to drive 12 hours, there are shelters (including pet friendly ones) and free Uber rides to the shelters, and shuttles. You'll still be in the path of the...
It's worth noting that people do not need to drive 12 hours, there are shelters (including pet friendly ones) and free Uber rides to the shelters, and shuttles. You'll still be in the path of the hurricane itself, but not at risk from the storm surge and the shelters are built to manage the storm.
There's options that don't involve driving to GA. Even now
Yeah, I agree. Sometimes things change after major disasters. There is some preparation before, but it tends to be by specialists. It's not the first one to cause major flooding near Tampa,...
Yeah, I agree. Sometimes things change after major disasters. There is some preparation before, but it tends to be by specialists.
To use a less fictional example, just look at this storm. Milton is the first major storm to make landfall in Tampa since 1921, a literal lifetime ago.
It's not the first one to cause major flooding near Tampa, though. Hurricane Ian hit Florida just two years ago.
Building homes in flood zones is something we've always been really bad at. I remember one point hearing a story about a township built by a river largely by black people during the reconstruction...
Building homes in flood zones is something we've always been really bad at. I remember one point hearing a story about a township built by a river largely by black people during the reconstruction era because the nearby town was, of course, incredibly hostile to them. Unfortunately the land they built on was actually the river's floodbank, and when a big enough storm came around the entire town was wiped away.
Unfortunately most people do not have the knowledge and experience to look for land that is not going to be prone to flooding, fire, landslides, etc, and once that property is built it might get sold to people who are buying it out of economic necessity.
Home building shows are my occasional dirty treat, but every once in a while I hear stories about people rebuilding houses that were lost in floods or fires, and I can't help but think to myself, "Wait, why are you looking to lose everything a second time?"
I saw a meteorologist talking about how this is a near perfect storm - as it may be nearing the maximum strength allowed but the temperature of the water. Here's hoping everyone stays safe. I've...
I saw a meteorologist talking about how this is a near perfect storm - as it may be nearing the maximum strength allowed but the temperature of the water. Here's hoping everyone stays safe. I've still got family and friends in the Carolinas without power from Helene.
Usually storms develop out in the Atlantic and then pick up some extra speed when/if they reach the Gulf (due to its warm waters). Also it's so late in the season that the Gulf has had all summer...
Usually storms develop out in the Atlantic and then pick up some extra speed when/if they reach the Gulf (due to its warm waters). Also it's so late in the season that the Gulf has had all summer to heat up. And this storm developed entirely in the Gulf, so yeah I'd say that's pretty ideal conditions for building the strongest storm unfortunately.
Last night, Milton strengthened to sub-900 millibars and 180 miles-per-hour sustained winds. That put it in the top five and top ten most-intense Atlantic hurricanes in history, by barometric...
Thankfully, it has steadily weakened since then, and should continue to do so before making landfall as a Category 4 hurricane, according to the National Hurricane Center:
"Strongest by 1-minute sustained wind speed" on that wiki link is headed by Dorian (2019) - Atlantic Canada got the tail end, not the Cat5 end, but folks are still talking about it. This is going...
"Strongest by 1-minute sustained wind speed" on that wiki link is headed by Dorian (2019) - Atlantic Canada got the tail end, not the Cat5 end, but folks are still talking about it.
And of course, it's back up to a Category 5 now. Still, the NHC is predicting it will weaken before landfall. They even lowered their expectations for landfall intensity to "just" a Category 3...
Thankfully, it has steadily weakened since then, and should continue to do so before making landfall
And of course, it's back up to a Category 5 now. Still, the NHC is predicting it will weaken before landfall. They even lowered their expectations for landfall intensity to "just" a Category 3 hurricane.
Just to be clear though, the storm's wind speeds won't be the major danger at landfall. That will be storm surge and flooding. It's difficult to explain (mostly because I don't understand it), but hurricane intensity doesn't have a direct correlation to storm surge levels, and those are still predicted to be life-threatening. That's why you might notice the NHC focuses more on storm surge and flooding information in their public advisories rather than wind speeds.
Yeah it gets bigger in size as it weakens in wind speed but doesn't necessarily contract as it regains that speed. I'm still afraid 3 is optimistic but 3 is still likely to be devastating. I'm...
Yeah it gets bigger in size as it weakens in wind speed but doesn't necessarily contract as it regains that speed. I'm still afraid 3 is optimistic but 3 is still likely to be devastating.
I'm hoping that "Lieutenant Dan" (a local who doesn't want to leave his sailboat home) does in fact leave his boat tomorrow. I keep coming across him on media.
As someone who has a little dream of having a sailboat home: I couldn't imagine trying to ride out a storm like this on a boat. Why didn't he sail away after the first NHC warning? Even just 12...
As someone who has a little dream of having a sailboat home: I couldn't imagine trying to ride out a storm like this on a boat.
Why didn't he sail away after the first NHC warning? Even just 12 hours should be enough time to motor, not even sail, far enough south or north to avoid the worst of the storm. Even if he left sometime tonight, he'd have better odds than staying put. Is the boat not operational? Is he not able to sail it?
It doesn't sail/isn't seaworthy. He's otherwise unhoused, and has everything he owns in the boat. But also that boat is likely to not be where it started after the storm surge. He's just this one...
It doesn't sail/isn't seaworthy. He's otherwise unhoused, and has everything he owns in the boat. But also that boat is likely to not be where it started after the storm surge. He's just this one guy that's well enough known and been on camera a few times. They've gotten him to agree to move several times but then he changes his mind. They told him that they'll move him because it's not an optional order, but idk.
P¡ p. O. N bbbbb bbbb b. ;nnnnnnnbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbnbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbnbb:nbnnbbbnbbbbbbbnnbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbnbbbnbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbnnjbb Edit: Oh wow. The comment equivalent of a pocket...
Exemplary
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Edit: Oh wow. The comment equivalent of a pocket dial. That was embarrassing. Since I seem to have amused people, I'll leave this here. Please label as "joke" or "off topic"
Comment box Scope: comment response, joke Tone: amused Opinion: none Sarcasm/humor: yes I feel the same way. I don't feel this way, but you're entitled to your opinion!
The people most impacted have very little power in Florida. The most powerful people in Florida who are causing the many issues there, are going to be fine. Hoping it gets "cleaned up" is really...
The people most impacted have very little power in Florida.
The most powerful people in Florida who are causing the many issues there, are going to be fine.
Hoping it gets "cleaned up" is really gross and I wish you would feel more empathy.
Hoping any Tilders in central and northwest Florida are getting out of the way of this impending disaster. It's looking like Hurricane Milton will make landfall in Tampa Bay, which is one of the most vulnerable places in the U.S. with respect to storm surge.
The Tampa area is still recovering from Hurricane Helene's storm surge. Hurricane Milton is likely to be much worse. More Atlantic storms are coming, with at least another seven weeks of hurricane season to go.
The Gulf of Mexico is running 4 °C warmer than expected for this time of year, and climate change is having predictable effects on storm intensification. Florida Gov. DeSantis is denying at full volume.
This storm looks to be a total disaster. I moved out of that area last year, but all of my friends and family are still there and none of them were able to evacuate far enough for my liking. The routes going north are few and apparently at a stand still and all the gas stations are out of gas. I don't have anything constructive to add other than I feel intense dread and weirdly guilty that I alone in my family am in relative safety.
I have friends that waited until the middle of the night to leave last night. Traffic had cleared up a good bit. My boss left a message in Slack at 3:48 AM that they were heading north at the time.
I have a lot of friends and coworkers in St Pete; where I resided for many years until '21. Thankfully my family is inland. So long as the Alifia doesn't flood, they should be safe from water. Also they all have cinder block construction, so not too concerned by the likely Cat 3 winds they'll receive.
I was in downtown St Pete all last week for work and hung around for some weekend activities with friends. I watched the mood shift from a bit of shock in the aftermath of Helene to anxiety and dread for Milton.
The destruction already brought by Helene was wild. I spent 40 years in Florida. Nearly 25 in the Tampa Bay area, mostly in St Pete. I've certainly never seen it anything like that there. I have friends that lost their homes, vehicles, expensive collections of tools and equipment for their livelihood, furniture, and cherished belongings of sentimental value. It sucks. I'm hoping I don't get calls or texts about any of them losing their lives.
I've personally been scared of only two prior storms: Charlie and Irma. I would be fleeing from Milton for sure. I'm worried from 400+ miles north.
I hope anyone that is ordered to evacuate does so.
It's weird that I keep seeing people saying that cinderblock homes should be safe when everything I have always been told is that frame houses actually handle high winds better than block because of their ability to flex. We shall see.
I was there for over 40 years, so I have been through a bunch of bunch of hurricanes, but this looks to be worse than anything I was in. It is entirely possible that I will end up having one or more of them moving up here with me while their homes are rebuilt or we find them somewhere new to live.
Generally, anything built after 1992 in Florida should be significantly stronger than stuff built before that, regardless of materials. This is because building codes changed significantly with the devastation brought by Hurricane Andrew in 92. Most storm damage is caused by storm surge and flooding, but with Andrew it was mostly the wind. Hence the improvement in building codes.
As for the homes built prior to 92, well that's when the materials matter most I would imagine. In theory, solid materials like concrete should resist better than wood-frame building. Not because the wood is weak or anything, but because the joints used in wood constructions were often the failure points seen in the aftermath of Andrew. Things like windows and doors flying off, or roofs detaching from the rest of the home, or houses lifting off their foundations were some of the main takeaways from Andrew's wake.
I've been wrong about many things in my time on this planet.
The anecdotes about Hugo up in SC were that cinderblock homes built in the 40s handled it better than stick frames built forty years later. It wouldn’t surprise me if newer stick frames were better, or if they handled different types of damage differently.
I imagine it is probably a combination of both, but also that SC construction in the 80s was probably not nearly as focused on storm mitigation as it was in places like Florida. As mentioned by another poster, in the early 90s there was a shift to stricter building codes that were required for new construction afterwards that helped a great deal. I actually recall the codes being updated in the mid 80s in FL as well because my parents build our home then and it made our home differ significantly in construction to the rest of the neighborhood.
My family evacuated for Irma back in 2017 and I can sympathize with the stress that it brings. Never faced so much traffic in my life. Took all evening and night to go a distance that normally takes like four hours tops.
As for your family, do they live somewhere close to the water? The storm surge is the really scary part of these storms. As long as they aren't within a few blocks of the ocean, or immediately next to a canal or something, then they should hopefully be safe. Still best to evacuate, of course, but sometimes you just can't convince someone to leave their home no matter what.
My mother lives in a condo on the intercoastal, so she 100% has to evacuate. My brother lives about half a mile inland. Generally storm surge shouldn't be an issue there, but this storm has the potential to invalidate previous precedent. My sister is in higher ground in St Pete proper, so the surge won't affect her. All that being said, cat3+ winds will likely be catastrophic to much of the area so I am still very worried for them all.
I'm in touch with a close friend who lives just north of Tampa, and couldn't evacuate before the roads got too jammed. She's in a new construction house, just outside the evacuation zone, so I'm hoping that will keep her safe. She's dealing with an elderly parent with ongoing health needs, and it's a frightening situation to be in.
Hope everyone that is in the way and can get out, got out.
Unfortunately, one of my best friends is sitting in a hotel room in Orlando because his job wants him to be able to get their incredibly non-essential businesses back up and running as soon as possible. Ain't capitalism grand?
This is just after another best friend of mine got hit by Helene in North Carolina and only just got power back (and therefore water as he has a well pump) yesterday. It's not a good time to be a friend of mine.
Not sure if your friend is local to anywhere that experiences hurricanes, but he should be more than safe in his hotel room, it'll just be loud and wet and dark and feel a bit ominous for a few hours while the storm passes tomorrow night and Thursday morning. The hotels in Orlando are familiar with storms like this and should be plenty safe for people to ride it out in. The hotel will probably lose power for anywhere from a few hours to a few days, but should otherwise be fine.
(I say this to hopefully reassure you and your friend as someone who has dealt with many hurricanes. Apologies if it sounds dismissive of your concerns!)
Mirror: https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/investing/commodities/2024/10/07/hurricane-milton-explodes-to-category-5-on-a-path-toward-florida/
(BNN Bloomberg is the official Bell Canada + Bloomberg partnership site and often has unpaywalled versions of Bloomberg articles)
Plugging the excellent blog www.theeyewall.com for anyone in the Caribbean, Gulf, or nearby areas. Or just anyone interested in keeping track of extreme weather events. They do a great job of explaining exactly what's happening in layman's terms and what that means for different soon-to-be-affected areas.
Milton as a storm is both A) near record-breaking in terms of how fast it developed, how far west it developed, and how intense it is, and B) the exact kind of storm that is becoming increasingly common as the Atlantic Ocean warms. Seems like every year now there's a record-breaking storm or two in the Caribbean, only question is where's it gonna hit.
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If these storms are becoming more and more common, and more and more dangerous, we need stronger national and state policy to resettle people who are living in areas that are going to be flooded/destroyed. We also need more physical infrastructure to mitigate the effects of flooding, like water-absorbing swamplands instead of concrete wastelands, but that doesn't do anything about the wind.
There is plenty of land in this country. It is extremely easy to build housing when regressive NIMBY zoning laws are bypassed. If coastal Florida is truly becoming hurricane-central, and this is an annual recurrence, we should leave it for greener pastures. The loss of life from this hurricane sounds like it will be immense, and the loss of infrastructure is going to be costly. Those are tax dollars being spent on repairing roads and bridges that probably shouldn't exist instead of giving people public healthcare. Inefficient and bad for society.
Insurers are already (fairly) jacking up prices in flood-risky areas, which is an economic incentive to NOT LIVE IN FLOOD ZONES, but the government needs to work to provide more and better alternatives to living in places less subject to horrible natural disasters. Like more housing in the many temperate parts of the country that don't suffer this amount of damage on a regular basis.
I thought for a while about how to reply to your comment, and I mostly agree with the overall sentiment that building in a flood zone is no bueno and our governments should really step up to help people at least have the ability to move elsewhere. Hell, I personally believe that no one should own beachfront property and that all beaches in Florida should belong to the public (a la Canaveral National Seashore). That would drastically reduce the storm surge damage caused by storms like Milton and Helene (and Ian and Irma and Michael and...) which would lessen the need to relocate so many people to more temperate areas of the country.
But the problem is that these storms are changing in unpredictable ways. Most people wouldn't expect the mountains of NC to be affected by hurricanes, and yet Helene wrecked them a week ago. These storms are becoming increasingly volatile and making forays deeper and deeper into land, so you'd have to relocate people quite a long ways from the coast to truly stop hurricane damage. Milton too, besides intensifying so rapidly, is almost unprecedented in just how far west it developed before heading east towards Florida. Basically we just don't know exactly what these future storms will bring other than increased development speeds, intensity, and frequency.
Like you, I think the emphasis of government entities should be more on A) making it easier for those in these regions to move elsewhere if they desire, and B) improving storm drainage and flood prevention systems in areas likely to experience these big storms (which is an area that has expanded significantly in the last couple decades and now probably includes most southeastern states). That last part is the trickiest I feel, since trying to convince people to spend millions of dollars on infrastructure to prevent flooding that has never happened before sounds like an uphill battle. Only the conditions have changed, and what was once unheard of is now becoming the norm, like hurricanes in the mountains 200+ miles away from the coast.
I think everyone knows that rivers flood and there are many examples of this, so it’s a known risk in some broad sense. And yet, in practice, people are often surprised by more severe flooding than they expected. There are existing flood control measures and often it’s assumed that they should be enough.
I’m remembering the bad flooding in Vermont a few years ago, and also flooding on the Susquehanna that devastated some communities in upstate New York.
One trend is that houses are getting more expensive all the time and they’re built in more places, so severe weather is bound to hit something.
Good point about houses getting more expensive. But as for rivers flooding, one thing that comes to mind is complacency. I took a disasters history class in grad school (incredible class, really opened my eyes to all forms of extreme weather) and one thing that stood out to me was just how often the same story about complacency would pop up.
Insert_place_here was the victim of a massive hurricane/earthquake/flood/drought/tsunami/fire and all the survivors were shocked because it had been decades or centuries since the last one of those events. If your town has literally never had a hurricane in recorded history, or that anyone alive can remember, it's damn near impossible to convince people of the dangers of a hurricane. It's like Chicken Little screaming about the sky falling or a little boy crying wolf. Except with climate change, these extreme weather phenomena are indeed happening, and with more intensity and frequency. The sky really is falling and the wolf isn't a lie, but people don't believe it.
To use a less fictional example, just look at this storm. Milton is the first major storm to make landfall in Tampa since 1921, a literal lifetime ago. The fact that some people there are choosing to ride out the storm instead of following evacuation orders is human nature, no matter how dumb that decision may seem. I'm sure someone out there is saying "meh I've lived here all my life, survived many hurricanes, I'm sure this one will be fine" because that's what happens with pretty much all of these hurricanes. It's a classic hurricane cliche along with 'more rain fell in 24/48 hours than in the past 2/3/4 months combined!' and 'it looks like a bomb went off' when surveying the aftermath.
Back to your river example, while everyone may know that rivers can flood, unprecedented times means unprecedented flooding. People living next to rivers may be used to it flooding a certain amount each year, and then build a little bit higher than that thinking that the extra bit of cushion will protect them. And this goes on for generations, with subsequent residents building and rebuilding as close to the river as they can without hitting the zone that floods regularly. But the problem is that these crazy weather events are no longer once in a lifetime events, and the next time that river floods it might be to never-before-seen levels, which is well past what people thought was historically safe (and had built their homes accordingly).
Unfortunately, as with many weather-related policies, building practices, and decisions, these things are often written after the fact rather than preemptively. Hurricane Andrew in 1992 forever changed Florida's building policies. Katrina in 2005 drastically altered the way FEMA handles disasters. And I have no doubt that Helene will spur new laws and regulations for states like NC and Georgia. But until these disasters hit, it's damn near impossible to convince people that something needs to be done now to prevent something that has never happened before. And even then it might still be difficult (see school shootings).
Don't hold it too much against people who are sheltering in place for Hurricane Milton. The storm intensified from a Category 1 to 5 in the space of 12 hours, leaving less than 48 hours for the evacuation notices. There are 5.5 million people in the evacuation zones. By the time many of them got the news, the freeways were too jammed to escape and gas stations were sold out.
The increased energy and moisture in these megastorms makes the usual emergency measures untenable.
5.5 m is a LOT of people on the move....
There's also resources and logistics: what if you can't afford several days worth of gas and hotels and eating out, or if you had horses or dogs that can't can't go with you, or there's a lot of medical equipment at home, or if they have some debilitating social anxiety or health issue that renders 12+ hours on the road more terrifying than death?
It's not ideal of course, and there are people who can evac who aren't because they really are just being stubborn etc, but we're not those people.
It's worth noting that people do not need to drive 12 hours, there are shelters (including pet friendly ones) and free Uber rides to the shelters, and shuttles. You'll still be in the path of the hurricane itself, but not at risk from the storm surge and the shelters are built to manage the storm.
There's options that don't involve driving to GA. Even now
Yeah, I agree. Sometimes things change after major disasters. There is some preparation before, but it tends to be by specialists.
It's not the first one to cause major flooding near Tampa, though. Hurricane Ian hit Florida just two years ago.
Building homes in flood zones is something we've always been really bad at. I remember one point hearing a story about a township built by a river largely by black people during the reconstruction era because the nearby town was, of course, incredibly hostile to them. Unfortunately the land they built on was actually the river's floodbank, and when a big enough storm came around the entire town was wiped away.
Unfortunately most people do not have the knowledge and experience to look for land that is not going to be prone to flooding, fire, landslides, etc, and once that property is built it might get sold to people who are buying it out of economic necessity.
Home building shows are my occasional dirty treat, but every once in a while I hear stories about people rebuilding houses that were lost in floods or fires, and I can't help but think to myself, "Wait, why are you looking to lose everything a second time?"
I saw a meteorologist talking about how this is a near perfect storm - as it may be nearing the maximum strength allowed but the temperature of the water. Here's hoping everyone stays safe. I've still got family and friends in the Carolinas without power from Helene.
Usually storms develop out in the Atlantic and then pick up some extra speed when/if they reach the Gulf (due to its warm waters). Also it's so late in the season that the Gulf has had all summer to heat up. And this storm developed entirely in the Gulf, so yeah I'd say that's pretty ideal conditions for building the strongest storm unfortunately.
Last night, Milton strengthened to sub-900 millibars and 180 miles-per-hour sustained winds. That put it in the top five and top ten most-intense Atlantic hurricanes in history, by barometric pressure and sustained windspeed respectively.
Thankfully, it has steadily weakened since then, and should continue to do so before making landfall as a Category 4 hurricane, according to the National Hurricane Center:
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCPAT4+shtml/DDHHMM.shtml
It's good that it weakened but it had previously been hoped/predicted that it'd land as a 3. Still going to hope it will.
"Strongest by 1-minute sustained wind speed" on that wiki link is headed by Dorian (2019) - Atlantic Canada got the tail end, not the Cat5 end, but folks are still talking about it.
This is going to be a wild one
And of course, it's back up to a Category 5 now. Still, the NHC is predicting it will weaken before landfall. They even lowered their expectations for landfall intensity to "just" a Category 3 hurricane.
Just to be clear though, the storm's wind speeds won't be the major danger at landfall. That will be storm surge and flooding. It's difficult to explain (mostly because I don't understand it), but hurricane intensity doesn't have a direct correlation to storm surge levels, and those are still predicted to be life-threatening. That's why you might notice the NHC focuses more on storm surge and flooding information in their public advisories rather than wind speeds.
(Not that you should go outside or anything.)
Yeah it gets bigger in size as it weakens in wind speed but doesn't necessarily contract as it regains that speed. I'm still afraid 3 is optimistic but 3 is still likely to be devastating.
I'm hoping that "Lieutenant Dan" (a local who doesn't want to leave his sailboat home) does in fact leave his boat tomorrow. I keep coming across him on media.
As someone who has a little dream of having a sailboat home: I couldn't imagine trying to ride out a storm like this on a boat.
Why didn't he sail away after the first NHC warning? Even just 12 hours should be enough time to motor, not even sail, far enough south or north to avoid the worst of the storm. Even if he left sometime tonight, he'd have better odds than staying put. Is the boat not operational? Is he not able to sail it?
It doesn't sail/isn't seaworthy. He's otherwise unhoused, and has everything he owns in the boat. But also that boat is likely to not be where it started after the storm surge. He's just this one guy that's well enough known and been on camera a few times. They've gotten him to agree to move several times but then he changes his mind. They told him that they'll move him because it's not an optional order, but idk.
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Edit: Oh wow. The comment equivalent of a pocket dial. That was embarrassing. Since I seem to have amused people, I'll leave this here. Please label as "joke" or "off topic"
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I feel the same way.
I don't feel this way, but you're entitled to your opinion!
Dude, I appreciate your dedication of live posting from the hurricane, but you should really take care of yourself first.
Interesting
The people most impacted have very little power in Florida.
The most powerful people in Florida who are causing the many issues there, are going to be fine.
Hoping it gets "cleaned up" is really gross and I wish you would feel more empathy.
edit: other commenter said enough in response. I'm going to drop it and move on.