Hurricane Irma

[PurpleLama]

http://stcroixsource.com/2017/09/07/...homas-st-john/

[Emil El Zapato]

I just saw that the roads are jammed in Florida with people trying to evacuate. It's crazy that the same thing happens everytime there is a mass evacuation. One would think that with the benefit of hindsight some of these problems would have been solved by now.

[Gio]

I just saw that the roads are jammed in Florida with people trying to evacuate. It's crazy that the same thing happens everytime there is a mass evacuation. One would think that with the benefit of hindsight some of these problems would have been solved by now.

There is no doubt it is a major dilemma ...

1. Some residence have job obligations and can't just leave right away ...
2. There is also a rush/shortage at the gas stations causing delays ...
3. Noting many (in Florida) have no real funds to travel ...
4. While others already on the roads have nowhere really to go -
Guessing what place or direction really offers safety?

PS ~ In South Florida - the airports currently are a mess !

Its truly massive - Lets pray it goes up the Gulf Stream pathway ...

[Dreamtimer]

The roads get jammed in traffic and accidents. Evacuations are exponentially worse. I don't know how it could be done better other than people leaving sooner. But where do you up and go for a few days unplanned? It ain't so easy.

TargeT is OK.

[Gio]

The roads get jammed in traffic and accidents. Evacuations are exponentially worse. I don't know how it could be done better other than people leaving sooner. But where do you up and go for a few days unplanned? It ain't so easy.

TargeT is OK.

His island - St Croix and (additionally) Puerto Rico - were very lucky to avoid a direct hit by this monster ...

Note There is still a threat from Jose ...

[Emil El Zapato]

I was stuck in evacuation traffic 12 years ago during Hurricane Rita. I was on one interstate and my 5 year old daughter was stuck on another for 18 hours. They were the worst hours of my life.

- Hurricane Rita -
"Texas reported the most deaths from the hurricane, where 113 deaths were reported, 107 of which were associated with the evacuation of the Houston metropolitan area." - Wikipedia

My point is that contigency plans should be in place for bathroom facilities, gasoline and survival supplies to be deployed in emergency fashion along evacuation routes. Roads can be redirected for maximum traffic flow out of the area, etc.

For a few years I was a volunteer Hurricane safety coordinator for the Johnson Space Center and it became painfully obvious that plans always fail when they are stressed by real time situations. But, there are plenty of sources for lessons learned. Ah yes, lessons learned. God bless them and good fortune to them!

[Fred Steeves]

The roads get jammed in traffic and accidents. Evacuations are exponentially worse. I don't know how it could be done better other than people leaving sooner. But where do you up and go for a few days unplanned? It ain't so easy.

TargeT is OK.

Yeah, this is a tricky one. Usually in Florida you can just jog one way or the other to get out of the path, but at this point anyway, it could still surprise a lot of people and head up the West Coast. No use leaving Cape Canaveral and heading over to Tampa, if Tampa stands a chance of getting nailed as well. Talk about possibly really f**kig yourself, pack your stuff, rush to a hotel three hours from home, and turns out you up and rushed right into the jaws of this thing. Doh!!!

That actually happened back in 2004. Cat 4 Hurricane Charley was supposed to rake straight up the west coast, right through the Tampa area where I used to live. A lot of people on the beaches freaked out and evacuated to hotels well inland, only to have the darn thing take a hard right turn at the last minute sparing the Tampa Bay area, but going straight across state over where all the evacuees had gone.

The only real safe bet here is to head north, til you can go west towards the Panhandle and Alabama. I certainly wouldn't leave Ft. Lauderdale to go towards say, Charleston, either. North, and then West, that would be the prudent strategy. IF, you really have to evacuate that is... A lot of people leave that really don't need to IMO, but that's a different story.

[TimeSensitive]

They say we have about 12 hours until impact. We live between Naples and Sarasota. We are as prepared as we can be but how can you even fathom a hurricane the size of the state to not just crumble all of us. If you are still trying to move that Irma with your mind, please send her into the gulf and shut her down. Yikes!

[Dreamtimer]

My you be safe, TimeSensitive. My sister-in-law lives in Naples. I don't know whether she's staying or evacuating.

[Emil El Zapato]

Still trying...

NAP

[Dumpster Diver]

As a former resident of Florida, I'll offer this:

We had a house outside of Destin FL that had the wood siding stripped off due to wind in hurricane Opal, but as we were within 1/2 block of the beach, our insurance company (a big name, non-fly by night company) refused to pay. A number of us banned together, got an attack-dog lawyer and forced a settlement for about 80% of the real damage bill. As we were on high ground (I always do my rising water research) I told the GF that our days were numbered in FL as this was a omen of things to come.

Destin is on a peninsula and triples the amount of people living on it in the summer due to tourism. There are only three roads (two over bridges) to get out of town, two routes that parallel the beach. This is a formula for an evacuation nightmare. Guess what? Most of Florida suffers from this same problem, and now you see if the storm well aimed and is big enough, the entire low-lying state becomes a massive traffic jam. There is no real solution to this as the road infrastructure will never handle the problem. We sold out in 1999, traveled west and never looked back.

When Hurricane Charlie hit, I was on a business trip to Orlando, overslept the night before and missed my departing plane. Normally, not a problem, but overnight Charlie became an obvious problem, and I was lucky to still have a rental car and drove it north to New Orleans, visit my Mom, and depart to SoCal. While eating Cajun donuts in the Cafe du Monde, I had a premonition of a hurricane hitting New Orleans, and I spent the last few hours before my flight saying goodbye to the city. Katrina hit the next year. Thankfully, my vision of the French Quarter being under 10 ft of water didn't happen, but the lower sections of the city did suffer that fate.

Most of Florida along the coast is unsustainable in terms of building and most of Florida is overbuilt, uninsurable, and dangerous to the in-frequent, but massive, storms.

That said, the much of the coast all along the Gulf of Mexico suffers from this problem, as Harvey has also lately shown us.

[Dreamtimer]

We used to go to the Outer Banks of North Carolina every summer. The one time a hurricane came, it wasn't bad. We narrowly missed a couple. Our friend has a house a couple blocks away from the beach. One year the roads had several feet of water. If his basement (ground level) got flooded that would suck.

They built a lot of houses north of Corolla where you have to drive on the beach to get there. Many got stranded during some bad storms.

Evacuating from the Outer Banks is a nightmare.

[Dumpster Diver]

Nags Head!

[enjoy being]

I hope people are safe. But remember, it is just another hurricane, isn't the region nicknamed hurricane alley or something? It would be more shocking and unusual if the hurricanes stopped happening. So as much as it is devastating and destructive, it is somewhat par for course and a choice to live there, and the emotional side of soaking up the drama from news reports is a bit like a kid climbing themselves up a tree everyday and crying because they like being rescued.

...but, keep safe everyone.

[Dumpster Diver]

There are no "safe" hurricanes...these things spawn tornadoes no matter how small the storm. One hit my folk's greenhouses, flattened several.