Irma

biplanebob said:
Good for already having your plywood cut and ready to go, it amazes me the run on plywood at the building supply stores..........what happened to the plywood from the last storm ?
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Our house came with steel shutters. All you have to do is put them up. The screws are already in the windows! Put them up, take them down rinse...and repeat.

Maybe there is a way to get them at Home depot. You would probably save money in the long run.
 
Always wanted to visit Key West. Have been cruising around on Google street view and will never get to see it like this for years. Sad times. Imagine the whole town will have the same problems Jay is having and will take quite some time to get back to normal. Best wishes to all there, hope you saved yourselves!
 
At one point in time, all of NC was in the cone of wild ass guessing. Now, none of NC is. Good for us here but I am hoping that those not so fortunate will come out ok. It still does not seem to have made much of a turn to the north yet but I guess that happens tonight. I dread seeing the news tomorrow morning.
 
FastEddieB said:
When things calm down, let us know if there's anything we can do to help.
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Thanks. Mostly I think I'll need a vacation in the mountains on a fast motorcycle, and I'll be sure you know when I'm coming up.

Forecast for Polk county says we'll see winds in the 100mph range tomorrow night, but we're in the northeast corner of the county and very close to Kissimmee. Kissimmee's forecast says 75mph winds, so that's more likely to be what we'll see. We should be able to handle that. I'd just like to get through without losing power for a week.

Glad your daughter is safe. Hope her home is okay.
 
Half Fast said:
I'd just like to get through without losing power for a week.
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Yep, me too. I'm expecting at least 80 mph winds tomorrow afternoon...probably more like 100 mph +. Unlikely that I'll maintain power, but hey...here's hoping.
 
This is NOAAs experimental inundation product. Historically, most of the loss of life in hurricanes has not been from the wind, but rather the flooding. Looks pretty grim for Ft Myers Beach, Cape Cora, Sanibel etc. Interestingly, not that dramatic for the St Pete Tampa area.


NOAA_innundation_sat_evening.jpg

Blue 1ft, Yellow 3ft, Orange 6ft, Red 9ft+
 
weilke said:
This is NOAAs experimental inundation product. Historically, most of the loss of life in hurricanes has not been from the wind, but rather the flooding. Looks pretty grim for Ft Myers Beach, Cape Cora, Sanibel etc. Interestingly, not that dramatic for the St Pete Tampa area.


View attachment 56264

Blue 1ft, Yellow 3ft, Orange 6ft, Red 9ft+
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Yeah, with the CCW rotation and it hugging the west coast, the coastline below where the eye hits will get the most flooding,
 
Well I'm based in Daytona area, Thursday evening forecasts looked horrible for my area so I flew my bird up to Tallahassee to stay with family. Well clearly a bad move as the cone now shifted entirely west. In hindsight now I wish I would have stayed home but oh well, too late to go back home now, and couldn't stay tied down outside in TLH with the current forecast. So I left TLH for Memphis. Has a nice flight to Memphis, which Is now the longest non-stop leg I've ever done in my plane, 419nm as planned.

All in all, I now wish I would have just stayed home with the current forecast but hindsight is 20/20, it was a nice visit with some family and now I'm in Memphis with some friends where the weather is beautiful. Plus part of me ever getting a plane was for the adventure, this certainly was one of them. And most importantly this was all the safest move. I'm still assuming I'll lose power and I have a trip for work Wed and Thursday so I'll most likely be flying back home on Friday, by then I'd imagine I'll have power back!

So where did everyone wind up flying to who evac'd? I originally went for KTLH, spent two nights and then into KMEM. I attached some pics of my journey!
 

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I stayed in the Daytona Beach area. I had reservations at a hotel in Orlando but with the westward shift that didnt look so good any more so i cancelled yesterday. Because of the 'cane they waived cancellation charges.
 
weilke said:
This is NOAAs experimental inundation product. Historically, most of the loss of life in hurricanes has not been from the wind, but rather the flooding. Looks pretty grim for Ft Myers Beach, Cape Cora, Sanibel etc. Interestingly, not that dramatic for the St Pete Tampa area.


View attachment 56264

Blue 1ft, Yellow 3ft, Orange 6ft, Red 9ft+
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I had the same confusion around their limited forecast impact for Tampa. My theory is that the bay is offering some protection as long as the storm hugs the coastline it can't push a lot of water into the bay. The further it goes west, the worse for Tampa, unless it stops going north altogether
 
JustinD said:
Well I'm based in Daytona area, Thursday evening forecasts looked horrible for my area so I flew my bird up to Tallahassee to stay with family. Well clearly a bad move as the cone now shifted entirely west. In hindsight now I wish I would have stayed home but oh well, too late to go back home now, and couldn't stay tied down outside in TLH with the current forecast. So I left TLH for Memphis. Has a nice flight to Memphis, which Is now the longest non-stop leg I've ever done in my plane, 419nm as planned.

All in all, I now wish I would have just stayed home with the current forecast but hindsight is 20/20, it was a nice visit with some family and now I'm in Memphis with some friends where the weather is beautiful. Plus part of me ever getting a plane was for the adventure, this certainly was one of them. And most importantly this was all the safest move. I'm still assuming I'll lose power and I have a trip for work Wed and Thursday so I'll most likely be flying back home on Friday, by then I'd imagine I'll have power back!

So where did everyone wind up flying to who evac'd? I originally went for KTLH, spent two nights and then into KMEM. I attached some pics of my journey!
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Don't take it to heart too much. Nobody has a crystal ball, not even the news media who was wrong many times to far. By the time it reaches you it should be pretty weak. I took the wife and the fur babies to Tenn. I landed at KRZR with a rented 182 which I love.
 
Remember you are making decisions based on an educated guess but a guess nonetheless. Still better odds though than an uneducated guess.
 
I've evacuated planes out of S FL a handful of times in the face of forecast hurricane paths. None that I recall ended up being totally necessary. One, to Avon Park, actually ended up put my Grumman and Citabria more in the path, though I recall a broken rudder spring was the total damage.

But it only takes one bad call - the photos of all the destroyed Mooneys at Punta Gorda from Charley and the devastation of Andrew still resonate. If in doubt, get out. And never second-guess. All you can do is go with the best projections - which, in this case were pretty spot on with the exception of the exact location of the northward turn, which they always warned required some guesswork.

Here in extreme N GA we have flood and high wind warnings for tomorrow and Tuesday. Karen told me they just started closing roads in the Smoky Mountains National Park. The terrain and trees here are very vulnerable to rain and wind.
 
SkyDog58 said:
Remember you are making decisions based on an educated guess but a guess nonetheless. Still better odds though than an uneducated guess.
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And,
If you evacuate unnecessarily, because you were wrong, you spent a few bucks and a little effort. And have quite a flyling adventure.
But if you don't evacuate, because you were wrong, you could suffer extreme injury or death.
 
The anemometer at Key West has given up:

KEYW 101238Z AUTO 1/4SM +RA VV006 A2814 RMK AO2 LTG DSNT NE PRESRR P0062 $

KEYW_0850.jpg
 
JOhnH said:
And,
If you evacuate unnecessarily, because you were wrong, you spent a few bucks and a little effort. And have quite a flyling adventure.
But if you don't evacuate, because you were wrong, you could suffer extreme injury or death.
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True, although after my failed landing and seeing nothing but 20 and 30 knot gusting crosswinds, for a few minutes I was wondering if I'd made a horrible mistake by leaving.
 
My brother and his wife have a home in the Fort Myers Beach red zone. Fortunately he and his wife are in their RV fifth wheel now in coastal Massachussets. Their planned itinerary had them returning to FMB this week. Now the fun starts...
 
weilke said:
The anemometer at Key West has given up:

KEYW 101238Z AUTO 1/4SM +RA VV006 A2814 RMK AO2 LTG DSNT NE PRESRR P0062 $

View attachment 56276
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By that radar image, it appears like it's really lost some intensity as far as precip, correct? Wind looks to be the biggest kicker as it continues north.
 
My flight yesterday was my first experience with the resignation "hazardous attitude". After my aborted landing my head was filled with "what have I done? I've killed us trying to make us safer". After a day of reflection, I should have realized because all the other metars were far worse than the one I knew was wrong, that one airport was probably wrong, not the entire system. If I had it to do over again I would have flown another hour north east to an airport with a favorable runway. But, at that moment, getting out of the sky safely wasn't a horrible decision. But one of my takeaways is to not rule out a lot of other options so quickly.
 
Salty said:
My flight yesterday was my first experience with the resignation "hazardous attitude". After my aborted landing my head was filled with "what have I done? I've killed us trying to make us safer". After a day of reflection, I should have realized because all the other metars were far worse than the one I knew was wrong, that one airport was probably wrong, not the entire system. If I had it to do over again I would have flown another hour north east to an airport with a favorable runway. But, at that moment, getting out of the sky safely wasn't a horrible decision. But one of my takeaways is to not rule out a lot of other options so quickly.
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You did the smart thing Salty. A lot on your mind to begin with, and then you possibly were overwhelmed and made a good decision, landed. You and your wife are safe, your plane is still airworthy and safe, and you learned from the experience. I'm just glad you're safe and hopefully out of harm's way.
 
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Ryanb said:
By that radar image, it appears like it's really lost some intensity as far as precip, correct? Wind looks to be the biggest kicker as it continues north.
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That is 'base reflectivity' rather than composite. I used it because it cleans up the picture a bit so you can see the map. The composite is just an orange blob.

The big pileup of water is going to be the lower coast around Ft Myers. The keys have no elevation, so even the 3-5ft they are getting is going to flood pretty much everything.
 
Saw this on Weather Ch last night. There's always one! Surf's Up!

 
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mscard88 said:
You did the smart thing Salty. A lot on your mind to begin with, and then you possibly were overwhelmed and made a good decision, landed. You and your wife are safe, your plane is still airworthy and safe, and you learned from the experience. I'm just glad you're safe and hopefully out of harm's way.
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Thanks. It appears like we are fine where we are now. Looking at the latest forecasts, I'm confident I made the right decision. The wife is handling it pretty well. She really didn't want to leave, but she understands it was a good idea.
 
Weather channel interviewing Florida governor.
Governor: "I just talked to a friend in the Keys and they are getting hammered"

Perfect reply: tell us something new

The weather channel guy totally missed the great straight line from the gov.
 
Clark1961 said:
Weather channel interviewing Florida governor.
Governor: "I just talked to a friend in the Keys and they are getting hammered"

Perfect reply: tell us something new

The weather channel guy totally missed the great straight line from the gov.
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Conchs are always getting hammered. It's always 5:00 there.
 
Since I'm bored in a hotel with nothing better to do, I pulled up the data my G5 logs to see what the winds really were at AMG.... The peak difference between my IAS and GS was when I was heading 66 degrees turning my base with a 24 knot headwind. The runway was 330, so in fact, it was a slight tailwind as well as a bad crosswind and heavy turbulence. 24 knots at 96 degrees.

Looking at the data on my landing in Vidalia, I see headwinds ranging from 11 to 31 once I was lined up with runway 7, with the 11 coming just as I was about to touch down and the stall alarm went off. It gusted again and popped me up a bit before an easy and safe touchdown.
 
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Now Mike Seidel is getting hammered in Miami according to Cantore
 
Seems like with the storm moving North, one would want to get East or West to have the quickest way back, once clear. I realized it moved a bit to the West, but what about over to Eastern SC or dues West of Pensacola?

It's going to be nasty up to N GA before long. With the layout of FL one does have to start with flying North.
 
Have or had a boat in Sarasota ,.luckily I had changed my plans of moving the airplane to KSRQ for the season. Untill next week.
 
Clark1961 said:
Now Mike Seidel is getting hammered in Miami according to Cantore
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He is! Watching WC and he's out there in the wind and waves crashing up against bulkheads. Someone with him was knocked down earlier, crazy bastards.
 
mscard88 said:
He is! Watching WC and he's out there in the wind and waves crashing up against bulkheads. Someone with him was knocked down earlier, crazy bastards.
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His speech isn't slurred yet but he seems to be stumbling around.
 
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