STORM SURGE
Peak Storm Surge Inundation: The potential for 12-18 feet above ground somewhere within surge prone areas. Window of concern: through Friday evening
UNCERTAINTY IN TRACK, SIZE AND INTENSITY: Potential for storm
surge flooding greater than 9 feet above ground
The storm surge threat has remained nearly steady from the
previous assessment.
PLAN: Shelter against extreme life-threatening storm surge
flooding greater than 9 feet above ground.
PREPARE: All ordered evacuations should be complete.
Evacuees should be in shelters well away from storm surge
flooding.
ACT: Remain sheltered in a safe location. Do not venture
outside. Move to upper floors to escape rising water if
necessary.
It appears Ian has made landfall at Cayo Costa, at the mouth of Charlotte Harbor. I don’t know if this means this will be the worst of the surge or not.
Very scary stuff. At least it should move past my In-Laws within 2 hours or so.
Fuck.
> It’s the strongest hurricane on record to make landfall on the west coast of the Florida peninsula.
It looks like the storm weakened rapidly when it came ashore but the massive amount of water it’s pulling in is going to cause a lot of damage. I’m watching Orlando and it seems to be holding up. Looks like 40-50 knot winds going forward at this point.
If I read this correctly there are over 2 million people without power. 2,079,702
It’s also amazing how many people don’t understand that there can be wind situations severe enough to break tiedowns or break wings that are tied down.
My workday on Wed was pretty nominal. Drove down to MIA in light traffic and occasional light rain.
We took off in a direction rarely used to better align with the strong but not crazy winds using our best turbulence / gusty defensive procedures. Which proved a non-event. The flight up to DCA took one of our usual routes, about 50-100 miles offshore. Saw some thunderstorms on radar but it was mostly smooth.
The return flight was more turbulent on about the same route, and we hunted a bunch for the smoothest altitude as we flew through the outlet flow of Ian. Still, the seatbelt sign was on for about 10 minutes of the 90-ish minute cruise. By 1030pm when we got to MIA it was still gusty and the winds had shifted to coming from the south-southwest which is about the worst-case alignment for MIA’s runways. No big deal though. Drove home on dry roads.
Of course the west coast and now Orlando and JJAX are a mess today.
I have a brother who lives in FL – east of Tampa (well inland). About 10" of rain, and some strong winds. Some branches and a small tree damaged in the neighborhood. Lost power a few times but never longer than 10 minutes. Plenty of clean-up but not too bad otherwise.
My In-Laws and their dogs came through OK, but it is possible the house took a lot of damage. Hard to tell by a relay of messages we got. Eventually I’ll talk to my FIL about it.
Also don’t know about the cars, but it sounds like they somehow avoided a surge that would flood the vehicles.
The Lee County Sheriff said the death toll could be in the hundreds. He later walked it back saying nothing was verified. Apparently he was predicting from 911 calls that came in that they couldn’t respond to.
Sections of the causeway connecting Sanibel/Captiva to the mainland were knocked out and will have to be rebuilt. Tons of resorts, homes, stores, restaurants cut off. Not sure what percentage of their supply chain relies on the causeway and how much is/can be ferried over. Their economy is destroyed until they can get the bridge back up.
Hope your family made it through OK. My older brother lives in Crescent City (same county) and his house is on the shores of a lake. He reports the lake didn’t rise to an alarming degree and he had no wind damage. In the last hurricane that went through Putnam County a tree fell on his house.
Of course there are winds that exceed the structural limits of the attaching points. But the picture posted shows mangled planes in front of a row of planes that weren’t tossed.
I’ve been going to Oshkosh for 30 years complete with tornadoes. It is amazing how many people don’t tie their planes down properly.
The short distance between Port Charlotte and Fort Myers made all the difference. My fiancée’s family seems to have come through it relatively unscathed. The storm surge that crushed Fort Myers was much less on the other side of the bay.
I wonder if there’s any plan to harden the power grid now that they have to rebuild a lot of it? And how do the green power sources fare against the old fossil fuel power plants?