We have a whopper of a hurricane that is going to hit us here in Florida on Saturday. It is whipping up 145 mph winds and has a 22 mile radius eye. The damn thing is as big as the whole state. The whole state is under hurricane watch and we are to evacuate by 2:00 this afternoon. Say a prayer for all of us and I will update you when I or if I return to something usable.
You got Frances and we got Howard. So. Cal. will only get head high swell from this “Chubasco” off Baja. We hope you on the East Coast will end up with waves without the winds.
Roger
Good luck fellas, hang on, my thoughts are with you.
Wells
PS if you’re shopping for supplies, grab a tire patch kit. After hugo, we were fixing flats due to roofing nails for MONTHS. Pain in the butt. Oh, and watch out for insurance scams.
I live in deltona, just 25 minutes from new smyrna,fl. The waves are supposed to be 7-12ft today and 12-20 tomorrow. i’m going to go and try to surf later today but im not sure how surfable they’ll be. i hear theres a ton of surfers already there so it should be pretty good.
this hurricane season has brought great waves for us in LI, NY but has done way too much destruction in other places. Hopefully this storm makes a turn for the best and doest hit florida too hard. The thing that truly scares me is the fact that i have a feeling this will be the year LI,NY gets hit with a powerful hurricane. LI is way overdo historically.
my father was born and raised in miami, and i’ve lived in boca raton my entire life. neither of us have ever run away from a hurricane, and we really get a kick out of all the people that leave town when there’s just a remote possibility of a hurricane coming close. my neighbors were completely freaked (regardless of how much my father and i told 'em that Frances was going to stay well to the north of us and that there was no need to leave). anyhow, they left at noon to wait out the storm in Macon, Georgia (which, ironically enough, will probably get worse weather up there then we will here in boca). they just called my house, and have only got as far as orlando (generally a 2-1/2 hour drive north on the turnpike). traffic is bumper to bumper for 350 miles from everyone running away from this thing. i just don’t get it. anyhow, my neighbors gave up and they’re coming home. i know i shouldn’t be so amused by all this, but i am.
Funny, I used to feel this way until Hugo. The storm surge went twelve miles inland. There was a high school auditorium in McClellanville where the terrified townspeople spent the day standing on tables holding their kids on their shoulders, because the water had gotten as high as their chests. After seeing the utter destruction north of charleston, I’m surprised only thirteen or so lost their lives.
Didn’t charlie veer off course at the last minute and make landfall in a different place than was forecast?
If you have a house that can withstand a direct hit by a major tornado (quite common in hurricanes), I hope you are offering shelter to others who are less fortunate. If not, the best of luck.
I grew up in Myrtle Beach, and we always went inland. During hugo, a friend who “bravely” stayed put had his roof blown off by a twister, and he and his little sister had to go out into the storm and break into a neighbor’s house for shelter. Keep in mind, hugo’s eye was 120 miles to the south. Needless to say, he now evacuates.
food for thought…
wells
traffic here in orlando has been ridiculous all day…no gasoline and grocer shelves started showing empty 3 days ago. mickey mouse is making the men who work weekends come to work even though they’ll be closed over the weekend (sweat shop). i didn’t get utilities back up for 7 days after charlie, some of my neighbors still don’t have power. the evacuation from brevard county prevents alot of us from surfing on friday or sat morning, maybe new smyrna will get lucky and not recieve much damage. talk to you all on the other side, some of us could post some pics.
A stark view of one’s mortality is belief-system changing for those with a few sequentially firing neurons.
To wit…this evening my wife and I completed a revision of our last will and testament, with the full knowledge that no residential structure can withstand Cat 4 sustained winds and embedded tornados.
It’s reality, not melodrama. A continuing state of high anxiety prevails despite our preparations. I prefer to be, and usually am, in control…
of course i’d leave if i thought the storm was going to hit us head on, but it’s going to stay well to the north of where i am. local weather reports distort everything to cause a panic because it boosts their ratings. i had charley’s path laid out days before it hit, and i had it dead on. meanwhile, all those people that just follow the “tv weather guy” blindly up and left tampa and went to orlando (directly in the path of the storm!). people panic because they don’t know any better. what i really can’t believe is the cost of 1,000,000 people needlessly evacuating. and most of 'em are actually putting themselves more in harm’s way than had they just stayed put. if only people could be rational and think for themselves…
We’re getting solid overhead ++ since this morning in South Jersey. High pressure sitting on top of us is playing with the winds, but they’re still light.
Best of luck to all in the south, be safe.
Well we are still here and will probably ride it out. The storm has slowed down giving us another day to do final final preparation around the place.The wife is getting ready to take the cats to lodged at the vets as I write this. We are going to keep watching the track and decide if we go to a friends house that is only a couple of years old and built to hurricane standards. I will send pics if we have power after it has passed us.Good luck to the rest of you in Florida
SOULSTICE is right on!
So much fear mongering…
The sick media and its constant message and portrail of death and destruction have brainwashed the public into mass panic…
there was little mention of San Salvador’s direct hit and actual 80-110 mph winds…145mph…sustained???
it makes me sick to watch…people are actually trying to flee the state!!! Losers.
What a joke!
Cops won’t let us near the beach down here in Lauderdale.No surf for ages and now you can’t go.
I wonder how much insurance is going to go up after this?
classicly hyper reportive doomsday yellow journalist weathermen desparate for noteriety are simply afraid of returning to the stacks librarian obscurity that is their ecological niche…bless their hearts their greatest fear is being yelled at if they miss a call on a thumper…ambrose… compassion for the storm as it dies as all must whay about the hatteras banks? is it off shore? in land waterway peelers 3’ and glassy?
Everyone has the competely wrong attitude about evacuation. My wife and I used to think of it as a late summer vacation. Drive to Orlando and hop a plane to… somewhere, anywhere else for a few days. Or drive to somewhere like Biloxi. See some shows. Do some gambling. Enjoy. Your not going to miss work, nobodys working. Stay away till the damn thing is gone and they turn the lights back on. I sat in the middle of enough of those things, hot and in the dark wondering if the storm surge was the next thing through the front door. Then there’s the aftermath. Pissed off people lined up at the causways waiting to get back. To what? No electric, no water. Just mosquitos and humidity… oh what fun! I’d never do it that way again. And I’ve also seen enough to know better than to stay.
a few friends of mine live on the beach in deerfield, so my surf buddies and i got with them in an attempt to get to the beach through all the cop blockades at every bridge…but no dice. those pricks wouldn’t let us anywhere near the ocean, and i saw some pix on a cam this morning…it looked GOOOOOD. early, the wind was side-offshore at south beach pavillion in boca raton, and it was lining up really nicely. i didn’t want to miss it, so i parked at a friend’s house on the intracoastal and paddled across. walked the rest of the way. it was just me, 2 friends, and chest-head high walls. like i said, they were lining up pretty well…not your standard super-chop wind waves. there was a strong pulse coming through providence channel and we were all over it. 
That’s too bad…here the beach road is like a party scene…everyone’s out looking at the ocean…some wicked kiteboarding going on…don’t care to surf that junk myself.
Greg makes some good (and funny) points about evacuating but long drives and me don’t get along…I heard I-95 north from FortP up to Jacksonville took 14 hours! No thanks I’ll ride it out on the couch. If I lose power for a few days I’ll be on vacation elsewhere.
Its interesting that almost nobody knows this…a car is a relatively safe place to ride out a big storm IF you know how to do it right…and there’s A/C.