From the HumourList:
This was written for another mailing list, but may also be of interest to many readers on the HumourList. It was in response to comments about evacuating or not evacuating Key West later this year if another hurricane threatens this year's Meeting of the Minds celebration of all things Buffett. And since the Nat'l Hurricane Forecasting Office (or wotever it's called ;) has predicted that 2002 will be a particularly tough year for East Coast hurricanes, I thought that a few preparatory comments were in order.
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In a message dated 4/12/02 11:40:05 PM Eastern Daylight Time, LastMango@sc.rr.com writes:
Not sure what my point is although I thought I had one when I started this
post. I agree it's best if the tourist leave, but when you're talking about
your home it's a tough decision. Also in the Keys you don't have the luxury
of making a last minute decision as we do.
Some links:
Photos that were taken following Hurricane Bertha: http://www.fototime.com/inv/F3096631B13F817
The story that I wrote when I had evacuated for Hurricane Floyd: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HumourList/message/150
When I lived in Wilmington I felt that I couldn't leave for Bertha for various
reasons. The overwhelming one being that I had, at the time, 3 cats, including
one very elderly cat, and the shelters wouldn't take pets. I wasn't going to
abandon my pets.
The hurricane in question was a Cat. 2 and I was living across the street from the marina where I kept my sailboat. My next door neighbor had a dock on the Intracoastal. I walked down to the water, walked back, and came to the conclusion that the wurst case scenario would put salt water no higher than the very bottom of my foundation. The house was well built and had likely been through a few storms before.
So I prepared to ride the storm out.
My escape plan was to put the Range Rover (the only vehicle that I've ever
heard of that gives you instructions on fording high water) in front of the
house, out in the open. It was packed, and ready to boogie. The street that
I was on had a surprising "hill" (for a coastal road) so I thought
that I could get out of sudden rising waters. In hindsight, I realize that preparing
the RR WAS A MISTAKE. Not only did a tree blow
down, blocking the street, but having experienced 100 mph. winds I now realize
that I would not have been able to drive in that crap.
So we (Myself, Romeo, Misty, and Momma Cat) rode that sucker out. The power went out early, and all there was to do was sit on the bed (the bedroom was closest to the water) and read.
A tree in the back yard blew down. That caught my attention when the branches hit the house!
Until I had seen a hurricane storm surge I didn't really understand it. I was on the Intracoastal, and thus sheltered from blue water. The waters were the smoothest that I had ever seen, but the level rose to a height that I had never seen before. How high? My boat was on a floating dock. To get down to the dock you walked down a steep ramp. When the eye of the hurricane was over us the winds were calm but the water level was still high. That steep, long ramp was now completely horizontal.
The docks floated on what were essentially telephone poles sunk into the muck. The tops of the poles would normally be about 10-15 feet over my head. When the eye of the hurricane came overhead the docks were within a foot or two of floating off the poles.
Needless to say, when Wilmington got hit with a Cat. 3 a few weeks later (I had moved to Floriduh at that point) I knew exactly what was going to happen to my boat. And it did.
A few years back Jacksonville almost got hit by a hurricane named Floyd. Floyd was 1 mph underneath being a Cat. 5, and my understanding is that the USA has only been hit by one Cat. 5 before. The hurricane pholks were predicting that Jacksonville would be solidly hit. I loaded up my stuff into a large, enclosed motorcycle trailer and boogied into Georgia. Spent the night sleeping in a truckstop parking lot. When I took the telephone out of the wall at the truckstop and hooked up my laptop (to the amuzement of the truckers, waitresses, and other refugees watching me, I might add ;) I could not believe that Floyd had, in fact, missed Jacksonville. The odds were totally against it.
Here in Jacksonville there's an attitude that JAX is invulnerable. A lot of pholks didn't evacuate for Floyd. People, let me tell you, and this goes for the handful of JAX people on this mailing list. WE HAVE SOME INCREDIBLY STUPID PEOPLE IN JACKSONVILLE.
A Cat. 2 (relatively weak storm) substantially destroyed the Beaches area during the 60's. Crappy construction, and it's a low area, were the big problems. Neither one of those parameters have changed in the last 40 years.
If Floyd had run up the coast, as it was expected to do, it would have rewritten the property laws in all of the coastal states. Here in Jacksonville, there wouldn't have been a living animal or plant, nor a building standing, between the beach and I-95. Think about that one.
So I guess the moral of the story is to know what you are getting into. Hurricanes are pretty unpredictable. Hugo was heading straight to Wilmington when it took a sudden sharp turn and walloped Charleston. When there's a big one offshore it's like having Godzilla walking down your street; a smart person plans ahead. The odds are that you won't become a victim, but you're stoopid to keep assuming that you'll never be in danger (witness the guys who wore the red shirts in the early Star Trek episodes -- they never saw it coming either!).
A Cat. 1 is basically high winds and survivable. The one exception might be if you are in an RV or mobile home. Or if you are in a place prone to flooding.
A Cat. 2 needs to be taken seriously. You can ride it out if you are prepared and in a secure location. But you WILL be scared if you get hit directly. If in a mobile home, RV, or a place that has EVER flooded, then get out.
A Cat. 3?? If you're in a very secure concrete block building well inland, in an area that's not prone to ANY flooding, you might be OK. Otherwise, you'd better boogie. And IIRC my Red Cross guide says simply that mobile homes are destroyed in a Cat. 3. Just that to the point.
Riding out a Cat. 4? You're insane if you think that you can ride this one out.
A Cat. 5? You're not insane nor brave. You're so stupid that you shouldn't be allowed to breed. And if you get caught up in a Cat. 5 then breeding will likely be a moot point once your body (or parts thereof) are recovered.
It's also interesting to see the differences between the Cat. 2 (Bertha) that hit Wilmington and the Cat. 3 (Fran) that hit the same area about 6 weeks later.
You can see from my photos the relative amount of damage following Bertha, which wasn't much. A lot of trees down, but that's about it.
Remembering that most of the loose stuff got knocked down and cleaned up following Bertha, Fran managed to knock down about as many trees once again.
My next door neighbor's house was destroyed when an errant boat wound up in the living room. There were lots of tears when they returned to see that their house was gone.
The storage shed outside my house was turned into aluminum foil.
My other next door neighbor had dozens of propane cylinders mysteriously scattered throughout his lawn. That was scary. Can we say "no smoking?"
Most fundamentally, Masonboro Boat Yard was absolutely and completely destroyed. Something like 150 boats got rolled up into a ball and deposited into Whiskey Creek, along with the dock. Very few were salvageable; most were scrapped. My boat was one of only three boats that wound up on dry land.
Bottom line: take hurricanes very, very seriously. Riding out a hurricane is
sorta like helping to throw a drunk out of a bar: If he's a drunk 125 lb. geek
that's one thing, but if he's packin' a razor blade in his sock and his 290
lb. girlfriend just went out the back door to get the shotgun out of the pick
'em up, then there's no dishonour in going out the front door pretty quickly.
Use your brains! Don't sit on the Keys, or the Outer Banks for that matter,
with a hurricane on the way unless you think that you know what you are doing.
Don't hang out in any coastal area if you're a tourist. Hurricanes are survivable,
but they can also kill you dead, and you need to understand that and also understand
the differences in strengths of hurricanes.
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