Irma

I hate to be the "sky is falling" guy, but we bought my son a ticket from
Orlando to Atlanta on Friday morning. He attends UCF. It was 180 from delta. Could be a waste but I like knowing we have an option for him.
 
bluesky74656 said:
I do have a hard cut off set for the drive/fly decision to be made. If the flight is at all doubtful at that point, we'll be on the road with time to spare.
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I'd almost wager that airline flights will be cancelled. Why take the risk? Your call but man, 3 little innocent kiddies.
 
FloridaPilot said:
Hmmm...you are probably talking about Andrew. Among the very few Cat 5's that hit Florida
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It was in he Gulf heading east towards the big bend, then turned around and headed west. That's when I left. Guess it was between 83-85 maybe 82-85, but I don't think it was 82 as the Air Force sent me all over the world that year on TDYs, controller strike and all that.
 
bluesky74656 said:
I do have a hard cut off set for the drive/fly decision to be made. If the flight is at all doubtful at that point, we'll be on the road with time to spare.
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I average 1-2 flights a week. Consider the real odds of non-Irma weather or mechanical delays or cancellations. I would not put a life or death decision in the hands of an airline schedule. Key West Int'l ending commercial service end of day Weds.
 
Latest update from local weatherman....

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=2039173542969588

"Hurricane Irma Update, 6:45 PM CDT - Hurricane hunter aircraft are currently flying through Irma to get the latest data ... and some of the preliminary data shows the central pressure has dropped even more to 915mb. That means Irma is still strengthening. The wind speeds likely won't go up very much simply because at 185 mph, Irma is already close to the upper threshold of what is possible ... from a physics standpoint.

This satellite loop is from the new GOES16 satellite. A new image is generated once a minute, which is what creates the smooth, highly-detailed loop. This loop is mesmerizing, jaw-dropping, and scary all at once. It also shows the incredible raw power of Mother Nature."


And I agree with others... if you are in southern Florida, leave now. Better to be inconvenienced for a few days if it misses your home than to be stuck there with little or no services and no safe shelter.
 
I am typing this sitting in east Texas, just flew the rv six hrs from fort myers but it's safely tucked in a hangar that it can stay in for months if mine is damaged at fms. Flying commercial back in the morning to get the family out. Not quite sure yet what I'm doing with the warrior. It might have to ride it out there in the hangar in Florida.

Bob
 
unsafervguy said:
I am typing this sitting in east Texas, just flew the rv six hrs from fort myers but it's safely tucked in a hangar that it can stay in for months if mine is damaged at fms. Flying commercial back in the morning to get the family out. Not quite sure yet what I'm doing with the warrior. It might have to ride it out there in the hangar in Florida.

Bob
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What's keeping you from moving the Warrior?
 
mscard88 said:
It was in he Gulf heading east towards the big bend, then turned around and headed west. That's when I left. Guess it was between 83-85 maybe 82-85, but I don't think it was 82 as the Air Force sent me all over the world that year on TDYs, controller strike and all that.
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Sounds like Gilbert, it filled the Gulf on satellite, and bounced around like a ping pong ball before actually heading for land.

Lots of us are watching Irma closely. We may be safe here in Alabama, we may not be.
 
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Time. Need to get the family out and can't put all four of us and the dog in a warrior. The other problem is where to go. The whole state of Florida is a big question mark. I may try to get someone to fly it out tommarrow.

Bob
 
Hank S said:
Sounds like Gilbert, it filled the Gulf on satellite, and bounced around like a ping pong ball before actually heading for land.

Llts of us are watching Irma closely. We may be safe here in Alabama, we may not be.
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If it gets in the Gulf who knows if we'll be safe in AL. There's a low pressure system forecasted over TN I think so that may help steer it along the SE coast and up the eastern seaboard.

Gilbert rings a cob web in my head but that was in 1988, so not Gilbert. Andrew was in '92 so not it either. Search came up with Elena, and the link below descsribe it's movement. So I think it was Elena. That wench!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Elena
 
bluesky74656 said:
I'm sitting in Naples right now staying at my mom's house. She's not here, my family and I are just using the house for the week. We've got a commercial flight booked out of here on Saturday that we don't think will be canceled. That's plan A. Plan B is to take my moms car and drive out. Plan C is riding it out with three kids under 5. We don't want to get to plan C, but we're trying to make sure we've got some essentials squirreled away in case we don't have a choice.
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If you can, stand by for any flight you can get, and LEAVE NOW.
The airlines will likely start moving everything out of South Florida Friday Morning. We have an AM planning meeting to discuss exactly that.
 
Caramon13 said:
Hurricanes are a way of life here in FL. If we evacuated for every single one of them we'd never get any work done in the late summer :).
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That's what I have been saying for years. So my theory is to only evacuate for Cat 4s and 5s, and maybe a Cat 3 if it looks like it is gong to be a direct hit. But for Cat 1's and 2's, meh, they are like the little shark bites we are famous for.
 
You've all been through it before so you know what to consider. My wife and I left our home south of Houston two days before the mandatory evacuation for Ike and rode it out in Dallas. She still had a 2-hour longer drive than normal but she took back roads and I did traffic and gas station spotting in the 172 we had at the time so no problem. I work out of Dallas frequently so I already had a pet friendly hotel set up and just worked remotely for a week.

The majorityof the rest of the people in the area disregarded the planned sequence for the mandatory evacuation. Ike was predicted to primarily be a storm surge event so they were going to move the coastal areas out first followed by the next bunch at risk and so on until they got to the folks that were encouraged to ride it out because they were out of the flood plains and weren't expecting high winds

All resource mananagement plans were based on that orderly flow looked good on paper. In real life we left two days early and it went well. A bunch of others left a day early and focused on the dedicated evacuation route. That led to gas stations along the route runnunig out of gas in a main lain of the freeway. Everyone that saw the situation stopped at the next station they came to and filled their cars to the max quickly draining those stations reserves. By the final mandatory day of the evacuation you had millions of people stuck in 6 lanes of stop and go traffic. Cars ran out of gas while in travel lanes creating more of a tie up . In the end something like 90 people died in their cars because some didn't follow the evacuation plan and broke the system for the rest bin the end there were something like 90 fatalities from vehicle related incidents in th traffic jam (most from a senior citizens bus the caught fire from N air brake failure).

From that I learned to study the available resources and if you think your going to evacuate go early. The cost of a couple of extra days wherever you go is nothing compared to waiting to long line and then running out of gas on the highway while still in the storms path

I've never been concerned with weak hurricanes or tropical storms before. I live 12 miles from the coast, was not 'in a flood plane' and have a well built house with great drainage. We did leave for Ike and the eye of the storm passed over my home. We lost 4 old growth 100' trees that all fell difirent directions and none touched the house. They took out all 4 sides of my 800' fence line but that and the rotten meat from no power for several days were our biggest response

We bought a new generator so se wouldn't have to deal with power the next time and it kind of worked. I had 15 gallons of gas on hand and had the generator tested and was ready to go. We weren't close to the actual storm track anyway but better safe than sorry. Everyone agreed that it was going to be a rain event but we were anticipating 20" to 30" over the 5 days of the storm in my area. That's just not that an unusual rainfall amount at my place so it didn't look like more than a minor inconvenience.

By Sunday night we had 18 1/2 " of rain over the 4 day storm total so everything went right by the book. We got 21" between 8 PM Monday and 8 AM Tuesday and the plan went out the window. We had to leave our cars and go out by boat. We've finished the abatement (remove everything to the studs to 4') and should be out of the shelter and living in our loft by the weekend. No one told Harvey he should have left us alone. The generator had water halfway up the engine and over the generator coils but we never lost power. I killed the mains before we evacuated but water never got into any outlets.The gas cans floated all over the yard but seemed to hold integrity well so we donated it to the boat crews.

In the end, nothing we would have done would have improved the outcome for us on this one, but if we're in the hurricane warning cone 5 days out for a cat three or higher we'll be heading for Dallas again and we'll be leaving early. The center of the cone 5 days out seems pretty consistent and at 3 days it's usually very close. The house is just not worth the risk to my family for us to stay.

Gary
 
Oh....
This weekend is gonna SUCK in the SOC.:eek:

I Love My Job...
I Love My Job...
I Love.....
 
Oh, this doesn't look good.
085945_5day_cone_no_line_and_wind.png
 
Has anyone looked at the island of Barbuda on Google Maps?

Hardly any elevation. I hope they survived without too much loss of life - dreading the first reports.

St. Martin is next up. That's the one with all the low jet approaches over the beach.

Helping my daughter get her dog and two cats up here to the GA mountains. Her plan is to drive home from around a Lake City meetup - she has tickets to fly to Italy on Friday, but that sounds unlikely now. Reports that I75 is already backed up northbound out of FL.

What a mess.
 
FastEddieB said:
Has anyone looked at the island of Barbuda on Google Maps?

Hardly any elevation. I hope they survived without too much loss of life - dreading the first reports.

St. Martin is next up. That's the one with all the low jet approaches over the beach.

Helping my daughter get her dog and two cats up here to the GA mountains. Her plan is to drive home from around a Lake City meetup - she has tickets to fly to Italy on Friday, but that sounds unlikely now. Reports that I75 is already backed up northbound out of FL.

What a mess.
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Exactly my point about evacuation. I also love how everyone is immediately saying evacuate when at this point, we still don't know the actual track of Irma and the governor hasn't issued any sort of evacuation orders for anything other than the Keys, and even then it's visitors only. There's still a chance (however small) that it could miss the state entirely. And, with the current path getting stuck on the road now means you are in MORE trouble then just staying put anyways..

Not everyone has the ability to just go on an instant vacation from work and spent a pile of cash uprooting an entire family for a few days. Someone has to be here, someone has to get work done. Those that want to flee...go ahead. This is Florida, hurricanes are a way of life whether it be a CAT 1 or a CAT 5.
 
Caramon13 said:
Exactly my point about evacuation. I also love how everyone is immediately saying evacuate when at this point, we still don't know the actual track of Irma and the governor hasn't issued any sort of evacuation orders for anything other than the Keys, and even then it's visitors only. There's still a chance (however small) that it could miss the state entirely. And, with the current path getting stuck on the road now means you are in MORE trouble then just staying put anyways..

Not everyone has the ability to just go on an instant vacation from work and spent a pile of cash uprooting an entire family for a few days. Someone has to be here, someone has to get work done. Those that want to flee...go ahead. This is Florida, hurricanes are a way of life whether it be a CAT 1 or a CAT 5.
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I remember a few hurricanes ago when people evacuated early, before an accurate track was known, and they evacuated directly into the path of the hurricane.

But then again, I remember several times when people waited for the government evacuation order, which came at the last minute, and the highways were parking lots, cars were running out of gas on the roads and some people even died in their cars.

And then there was Houston, where the government never ordered an evacuation for fear of what such a mass exodus would cause. The last time Houston evacuated, more people were killed in traffic than by the hurricane. And we had people whining that they were not told to evacuate.

The point is that people have to decide for themselves whether it is worth it to them to evacuate early or not. I'd be leaving town today if my wife didn't have to work on Friday. But since we don't know the storm path yet, it isn't practical for her to announce she won't come to work Friday.
 
FastEddieB said:
Pretty sure you understand wrong.

Both are catastrophic, but 188 mph winds have a lot more energy than 158 mph winds - energy increases as the square of the increase in velocity.
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Most likely the idea is that anything worse than total devastation is still... total devastation.

But I always thought the actual reason was that storms far enough into Category 5 to warrant a higher number were so rare as to not be worth creating a new category for. That may turn out to be no longer true. :(
 
I would have been thinking hard about leaving south FL the minute Irma hit cat 4 and all the lines of the various models became more focused. The chances of it not hitting the area and not hitting really hard are very small now.
 
SkyDog58 said:
I would have been thinking hard about leaving south FL the minute Irma hit cat 4 and all the lines of the various models became more focused. The chances of it not hitting the area and not hitting really hard are very small now.
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Based on what information? At best they have it as a CAT 3 hitting FL right now, if it hits. We're 5 days out and most of the new models have it going east of the state. The track has shifted quite a bit because they take the middle of the trends.

Hitting CAT 4 out in the Atlantic means almost nothing. A hurricane has to go through a lot of islands and gets broken up by Puerto Rico mountains before it gets here. It's going to be a lot of rain and wind, NBD.

IMO it's far more disruptive and annoying to drag your family 1000 miles away for a day of rain and wind then it would be to just stay where you are and deal with it. If this was a CAT 5 in the Gulf heading east, it'd be a different story. Atlantic hurricanes are a major pain to the island nations, but there's a LOT for them to go through before they get to FL.

@JOhnH you have to do what is right for your family, of course.
 
So on the way home yesterday there was a huge traffic jam on I10. In the middle of it were 10 huge Miami-Dade search and rescue team trucks towing boats and supplies with lights and sirens a blaring. Guess they said glad we could help you Houston but we got our own problems coming. Was nice to see the amount of support they sent to Houston. Hopefully it shifts east and they will get some much needed rest.
 
Sinistar said:
You do have a choice...leave now. I'm sure you'll be out some airline tickets. But you can count on Murphy's law kicking your arse when it comes to those airline seats being a sure thing on Saturday.

I'm not a licensed pilot...yet. But this sounds just like a aviation decision making scenario. Plan C sounds like "I can try and fly through it". Plan A sounds like "I think I can fly around it". And plan B sounds like: "There's no way I can control this friggin' thing, I'm driving RIGHT NOW before it turns into Plan C or Plan D or who knows what". Three kids under 5......perfectly good car before the roads get all tied up....hmmm?
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bluesky74656 said:
I do have a hard cut off set for the drive/fly decision to be made. If the flight is at all doubtful at that point, we'll be on the road with time to spare.
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Good luck getting out at this point. The airlines are essentially sold out. A friend of mine had trouble getting in last night to seal up the house and then getting out today. Last night another friend tried to book out and the very best they could do was a 2-stop flight from MIA to PHX that jumped in price from $500 to $2200 in the 15 seconds between the time they reserved the flight and got tho the payment page.


Pretty much nothing as of this AM, at least from MIA.
 
Caramon13 said:
Based on what information? At best they have it as a CAT 3 hitting FL right now, if it hits. We're 5 days out and most of the new models have it going east of the state. The track has shifted quite a bit because they take the middle of the trends.

Hitting CAT 4 out in the Atlantic means almost nothing. A hurricane has to go through a lot of islands and gets broken up by Puerto Rico mountains before it gets here. It's going to be a lot of rain and wind, NBD.

IMO it's far more disruptive and annoying to drag your family 1000 miles away for a day of rain and wind then it would be to just stay where you are and deal with it. If this was a CAT 5 in the Gulf heading east, it'd be a different story. Atlantic hurricanes are a major pain to the island nations, but there's a LOT for them to go through before they get to FL.

@JOhnH you have to do what is right for your family, of course.
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Having lived in FL all of my life, what is good advice for one area is not always good advice for another. I am just North of Tampa, and like you, will not be evacuating either. If I lived in homestead or somewhere down in that area anywhere near the ocean or on low ground, I would be leaving!
 
455 Bravo Uniform said:
I average 1-2 flights a week. Consider the real odds of non-Irma weather or mechanical delays or cancellations. I would not put a life or death decision in the hands of an airline schedule. Key West Int'l ending commercial service end of day Weds.
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I don't average that much, but this year I have do a fair amount of traveling. Seems like their cancel/delayed rate is through the roof this year, regardless of airline. The last four flights in a row I have had problems. Notice I said flights, not trips.
 
If anyone in Florida is trying to escape Irma with their aircraft, but don't know where to go, the Winchester Municipal Airport (BGF) in Winchester, TN can accept 9 to 10 light singles or twins. Storage hangar space will be made available free of charge on a first come, first served basis. Plenty of ramp space is available for free as well. The Franklin County Airport (UOS) has limited space available as well. Please just get out! Spread the word if you know someone.
 
Sister spoke with the parents in the wee hours of this morning, everything is boarded up and they're down for a nap, looks like it's gonna be a pretty wild ride in San Juan. Footage from the leewards is pretty gnarly, but they re pretty calm. We ve been through this before.

Got a squadron mate on vacation just a little bit east on the BVI, he's a bit more exposed on a resort hotel on a much smaller island, he was trying to repo to SJU but flights cacnelled yesterday and his entourage was 11 so made the coordinaton difficult. We ll be attempting to regain contact in the next couple of days based on loss of cell phone towers and/ power in the islands.
 
Track just updated to miss (barely) FL to the east.

SC looks like it'll get nailed if that happens...sure you SC folks don't want to come down here? :)
 
Is anyone moving a plane out of the Ft Myers area anywhere north? I have a brother down there and he has no way out, airlines sold out, rental cars out, etc. I am up in Chicago thinking about flying down to get him tomorrow.

Hit me offline if you are looking for a passenger.
 
wsuffa said:
Good luck getting out at this point. The airlines are essentially sold out. A friend of mine had trouble getting in last night to seal up the house and then getting out today. Last night another friend tried to book out and the very best they could do was a 2-stop flight from MIA to PHX that jumped in price from $500 to $2200 in the 15 seconds between the time they reserved the flight and got tho the payment page.


Pretty much nothing as of this AM, at least from MIA.
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Sure sounds like 'price gouging'.
 
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