I mean as close to the eye as possible, where the winds sustain 150 mph. What’s it like to be in those high winds where it STAYS that speed at least?
What does it sound like? What’s it like to be in a building? Outside?
I just can’t imagine the experience…anyone who’s been through one let me know!
Thanks!
It would be rather foolish to be outside in 150 mph winds. I’ve seen tests where they’ve fired 2x4’s at 150 mph at a wall. At those speeds the boards will go completely through the walls that most houses are made out of. One good chunk of debris could be fatal to a human body.
Remember the winds are sometimes saturated with water too. Water weights about 8 pounds a gallon. So you not only have the wind, you have tons and tons of water being hurled at you over 100 mph.
Being in 100+ mph winds is basically a terrifying nightmare you wish would stop. The rush of the wind causes a defining sound, sometimes described as the sound of a train locomotive. As the world around you gets torn apart, piece by piece, shatteriing glass, projectiles slamming into your walls, your house creeks and moans as parts of the roof and siding are stripped off and blown away. You sit in your bathtub with your sofa cushions covering you hoping and praying your house doesn’t collapse down on you. You tell yourself, if you live through this ordeal, you will never stay put to witness another hurricane. You will, from that day on, be one the first people to evacuate when given the warning.
Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours? (Gordon Lightfoot, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald)
You can liken it to getting married, if you’re a guy. There is a lot of anxiety when you know it’s coming, but you make the necessary preparations and try to be brave, just like those who have gone before you. When it finally arrives, there is lots of blowing and sucking, it’s wet, and the lights usually go out. Then there is a time of calm-eerie peacefulness, and then all hell breaks loose in the other direction. When it’s finally over, your house and car are gone. 
I’ve through the eye of three different storms, one of them major. What’s it like?
All you hear is a roaring noise, with ocassional changes in pitch. Sometimes you hear large things moving and thumps and thuds. You also hear the tinny sound of your battery operated weather radio and the nervous noises of what friends or family may be with you. Mostly though, you’re thinking, “Why the hell didn’t I evacuate?” And no, I don’t mean shitting.
Going outside for the eye is surreal. Not only is the view stunning (on the ground as well as in the sky), but the air just feels wrong. Maybe it’s the lack of the roaring sound after hearing that for so long, maybe it’s the air pressure, I couldn’t tell you. But it’s weird. And… you know you got just about as long as the first part to sit through again.
I’ve been in three tornados, too. What is it with me and threes? Not going through the eye, I can add maybe ten other storms I witnessed in person, whether as canes or tropical storms.
Why would someone stay, you ask? Several factors. You may be pretty secure in your preparations, or you may think it’s not quite gonna hit your area, or perhaps not be that bad. The actual rank of the worst one for me was catagory 2. If a stronger storm had been coming, I probably would’ve evacuated.
But evacuation has it’s own problems. When I was living within minutes of the coast, I evacuated to my brother’s home, over 100 miles inland. Guess what? We got flooded at his house. Earlier in life, my parents took us about 300 miles away from a catastrophic storm. Good thing, too. Our neighbourhood was flooded for days and we had to get rid of the snakes before moving back into our house. I don’t remember that one, I was only two.
In my first paragraph, some of the thumps and thuds may just be distant thunder, it’s hard to tell. Every now and then, you do hear unmistakeable close by thunder, though. Just add that in to the mix.
Recommended reading: Isaac’s Storm, an account of the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, the deadliest natural disaster in US history.
(engineer_comp_geek is exactly right about flying debris. Victims who didn’t drown were impaled by flying objects traveling at terriffic speeds.)
If you are wavering about whether to evacuate in the face of a hurricane, read this book and it will convince you.
My family rode out Hurricane Carla in Galveston, a block and one half from the beach. My sister remembers watching waves hit the seawall. The tops would shear off and fly through the air until they hit the house. Supposedly my brother walked to the garage at one point to check on the dog (take it with a grain of salt; I have no idea how a twelve year old kid could have opened and closed the doors.) As he was walking across the backyard, he reached forward and touched the ground.
I was still living at home with my parents in South Florida in ‘92, when Andrew came a-knockin’.
I’d previously heard that a hurricane sound like a locomotive, and I was a bit skeptical, but it turned out to be true. Sort of a chugging, pulsing rhythm that can sound quite prominent in its overall “white noise mix” of howling winds (which add a windy tonality to the noise), pounding rain (in our case, making a loud metallic pinging and pounding, since we had aluminum heavy-gauge storm shutters over the windows and doors), a shit-storm of debris hitting everything, and the destruction of everything outside (the “roughage” that offers resistance to the winds – stuff like trees and bushes, fences, other buildings, exposed vehicles, boats parked on trailers, sheds, satellite dishes, etc.). All together, though, it sounded eerily like a freight train barrelling towards our house!
I’m not sure why or how a hurricane can sound like that and have any kind of micro-rhythms, though. (By “micro-”, I mean to distinguish this rhythm from the much greater overall banded pattern of the most intense winds, followed by relatively moderate periods.) Why shouldn’t the noise be more even, if you will, like white noise? Is there a sort of order (a collective harmonic amplitude strummed by the elemental destruction, as it were) established in the chaotic energies of the storm, that generate those surprisingly regular chugging sounds?
The most dreadful sound of a hurricane, though, is the explosive racket that occurs when something smashes into your home, breaking through [check whatever categories apply]: windowpanes/sliding glass door(s)/wooden door/wall/etc…, accompanied by howling, whistling winds, the pattering of the wind-whipped rain (now falling inside your home), the violent rattling of whatever interior doors are shut against the destroyed rooms, but struggling to open…
One sound I’m not familiar with is that of the wind peeling, ripping, and lifting the roof off. That didn’t happen to us, thank goodness, although it did happen to families half a block away (in the same suburban subdivision). :eek:
Nice 
I was in Ponce, Puerto Rico during Hurricane David.
Though I was young, I can still remember it very clearly. I like The Scrivener’s explanation. The howling wind, the pelting rain, debris hitting the building, all kinds of sounds. I remember seeing palm trees bent sideways from the wind, and chickens and debris flying outside the window.
I wasn’t as scared as I’d expect myself to be, I guess my mother did a good job of not alarming us. She must have been hysterical inside. I know I would have been.
I was in hurricane Gloria when it hit Long Island in the mid-80s. I had an apartment in a high-rise right on the beach (stepping out my back door, I was on the boardwalk). AFAIK, I was the only person in my building who didn’t evacuate; they didn’t let pets in the shelter people were going to, so I opted to stay at home with my cats, who turned out to be total sissies.
I remember the waves were as big as houses, and the wind and rain were moving perfectly horizontally. Though I lived in a very strong building, made of cinderblocks, I could feel the building shake. Since I was right on the beach, there was absolutely no debris flying around, so my power never went off – unlike most of Long Island which had power outages for weeks.
When it was all over, all I remember was thousands of butterflies; I have no idea where they were during the storm.
My car wound up on the other side of the street, and we lost some sections of the boardwalk. We also lost all the sand from the beach (what remained was like cement), so our town had to buy truckloads of sand to replenish it.
It’s dark, noisy as hell, and cycles like a washing machine. You never knew nature could be so loud. Afterwards you wonder how eight hours went by so quickly.
And your mom keeps screaming at dad to pinch the newborn’s foot to make sure she’s ok.
(Andrew, '92)
The Scrivener’s description of Andrew is about the same as mine. The only thing I’d add is the weird sound the powerlines made when the wind went through them - like a huge, off-tune guitar string.
Made it easy to tell when the line snapped.
Been in a lot of typhoons. One thing people haven’t mentioned is hearing windows implode owing to drastic pressure differences. Also, nothing like be 30 stories up and having the building creak back and forth.
I was in a storm in the North Atlantic that lasted for about a week with winds in the 120+ knots range. I was on a sub tender (USS Canopus) heading from Holy Loch Scotland to Charleston in the mid-'70s. A sub tender is essentially a floating grocery store and repair shop and the sailors are mostly techs of various sorts and logistics people, not exactly Long John Silver.
Several things have stuck with me and I expect to always remember them. The first thing is the smell of 1200 sailors being seasick in a closed container. That was truly memorable along with the Officer of the Deck one night that seemed immune until he lit a particularly vile cigar. 
The thing I remember most is opening a steel hatch onto the weather deck. This is just under 7 feet high and 3 feet wide and is steel. It probably weighs 300-400 pounds. The wind jerked the hatch out of my hands like I was a toddler. I had intended (against orders) to go outside and see what it was like but after having the hatch slam open with the wind I contented myself with sticking my head out and looking around a bit. I was around 30 feet above the waterline but I remember looking up at a wave. It was so unreal for water to do anything like that. The wave was an unnatural gray-green color like an old lichen and moved much too fast for anything so large. It is a cliche but it was just like a moving mountain. I just stood there gawking until it slammed into us and knocked me back into the entryway I was standing in. After a few attempts I managed to get the hatch closed and snuck off, dripping heavily and acting like I had no idea who might have let all that water into the ship. :o
Regards
Testy
I’ve been through a few hurricanes in Texas and Hong Kong. My great-aunt’s house and worldly possessions were totally wiped out in Dominica in 1979 by hurricane David, so I know they’re not a laughing matter, but the following is my recollection of the most entertaining one I’ve been in.
Hong Kong, August 20, 1993 (some details may be fuzzy). Coincidentally, we’ve taken day off work, and a bunch of us are hanging out drinking beer on Hong Kong island. The day started with typhoon signal 1 (meaning: “typhoon within 800 km”). Typhoon signal 3 (meaning: “we’re going to get the edge of the winds at least”) is raised just before lunch, then later, sitting in a pub after having just ordered food, the staff come to tell us that we can’t eat: the pub is being shut as it’s gone to signal 8 (meaning: “holy shit, it’s coming this way!”), and we have to leave. The city closes down officially with a couple of hours’ notice. I am living on Lamma Island south of Hong Kong, and we have about 30 minutes to get to the ferry pier to grab the last boat before shutdown. We rush to the supermarket shouting “typhoon party!”, stock up on slabs of beer, then run and get on the last ferry with seconds to spare. The wind is whipping up strongly now, and the normally flat harbour is choppy. I take pictures of my female friends on the ferry hidden by their hair, blown horizontally over their faces.
We arrive at the island pier after about an hour of rolling and yawing. The docking is rather worrying, but skilfully executed, and the gangplank bucks up and down. Glad to be on terra firma, and still hungry, we discover to our surprise that a local pub/restaurant is still open, and the top storey has a view of the harbour. We take our seats facing the big panoramic windows, order curry and beer, and watch the extraordinary show of vast container ships being tipped on their ends at 45 degree plus by the waves, which have increased in size dramatically over the past few minutes. As we’re enjoying another round of beers, a container ship breaks loose from its moorings. Soon, a police launch hoves into view, hidden every couple of seconds by the heaving harbour. Then a huge wave completely covers the launch, and we gasp, thinking it’s been lost. After seconds that seem like hours, from the middle of the next wave, the launch pops out like a champagne cork. It seems these things are hermetically sealed. The brave - or foolhardy - cops manage to get a line onto the ship, and reattach it to one of the permanent mooring buoys. We are amazed. A couple of years earlier such a ship had broken free and ended up on one of the island’s beaches, towering over the jungle like an incongruous fifteen-storey building.
We pay and leave, and head back to the apartment, now fighting our way into the wind and driving sand and grit. Once back in the apartment, we fill containers with water and discuss which room to shelter in if needed (the bathroom as it only has one small window). If it gets worse we should open the windows to let the wind rush through, since keeping the place sealed can cause the windows on the opposite side of the building to the wind to get sucked out by the pressure differential.
We watch with trepidation as a pile of corrugated iron sheets on top of a neighbouring building is flung, sheet by sheet, like deadly frisbees down the street, hoping that nobody is walking there, as they could easily be decapitated. There’s no rain yet, but the wind is now howling from our left. As it passes between two hills, it twists down onto the bay into a tornado, and a line of waterspouts advance like infantry, five or six at a time, across the bay until they make landfall on the hill opposite and disperse. Then the rain starts. It’s being driven against the windows in a sheet. The wind roars, and the rain gushes, and the windows shake, and we sit drinking beer.
After about an hour of this, the wind starts to relent. The storm is retreating - it wasn’t a direct hit. Eventually we decide to see what the damage is, and walk down our nearest beach in the bucketing warm rain, soaked to the skin. We pick our way through the jungle path, stepping over fallen trees. Our nearest beach has disappeared. All the sand has been sucked out to sea, leaving just the bedrock.
At the next beach, Hung Shing Ye, the sand is there, and so are the surfers: normally Hong Kong provides nothing in the way of waves, but the typhoon has created ideal body-boarding conditions. I get in and body surf a few waves. Then there’s a commotion at the far side of the beach. Something has been washed ashore. It’s a black plastic sack that stinks, and the guy who picked it up says it feels like there’s a human head in there. A triad assassination exposed by the typhoon, is the speculation. Someone runs to the nearby police station, and two cops turn up and remove the bag.
Night falls and the rain continues, and the restaurants reopen, and the entire island is out partying in the rain.
A few years ago, after I’d left, Hong Kong raised the signal 10 (meaning: direct hit). Several people died in landslides in the territory, and Lamma Island was badly hit. I visited a few weeks later, and large patches of jungle had been ripped out, and several small Hakkanese farms had been devastated.
Incidentally, we heard later that the cops made the resident rookie open the bag. The stench was overpowering. He gingerly pulled the plastic back to find…
a durian.
Being from Oklahoma, I’ve had my fair share of experience with tornados. Since I’ve moved to Louisiana, I’ve also been through my first hurricane. We’ll, it’s kind of like Mardi Gras in New Orleans: It’s a life experience you can chalk up, but once is really enough.
Some excellent descriptions already, but the thing that struck me was the bayou behind our back hard. It’s about 30 feet wide, and I guess about 8 feet deep or so. Basically, it’s a muddy creek. We were in the eye for Hurricane Lily (only a Force 2, but that’s enough, thank you). When the winds were gusting to about 100 mph, the bayou had damn whitecaps. First one direction, then after the eye passed, the other direction. Two foot whitecaps on a bayou.
An everything I’ve heard about the creepiness of being in the eye of a hurricane was true. Everything still, no wildlife noise whatsoever, and, as one poster mentioned, the air just felt wrong, probably because of the low barometric pressure. Darky and rainy, the perfectly clear, then you could feel the wind pick up again, but going the opposite direction, and you knew you were in for it again.
Yep, once is definitely enough. Anything over Force 2, and I’m out of here. By the way, my stepson and his wife live in Tampa; man, they’ve been getting the hell beat out them with hurricanse.
Does anyone know why in the love of God anyone would want to
live in Florida with hurricane season every year?!?
My son spent some time there once and after hearing “it’s a big
humid sandbar with palmetto bugs as big as your hand and they
spray the streets every night to kill the bugs…” I thought, “Geez,
I’d move in a heartbeat.”
Not implying Floridians aren’t Really Nice People…and not meaning to
change the OP; I’m jusy curious.
Well, I live in North Carolina – you know, that state that sticks out as a backstop to catch hurricanes in case one of them misses Florida. :rolleyes:
And I chose to move here, knowing that Fran had come through two years earlier, because I could not hack the winters in Northern New York any longer – especially with storms causing widespread and long-lasting power outages every other year since 1990.
What I’ve got here is a climate that is, quite frankly, too hot and humid for about nine or ten weeks, shirtsleeve weather for about seven months surrounding them, sweater or jacket weather for most of the rest of the time, with a month or so of temperatures near freezing. So I get my four seasons, but in the proportions I prefer – weather that’s just right most of the time, with a little at either end that’s Mama Bear or Poppa Bear, so to speak. We’ve had four “hurricanes” pass through and felt edge effects from a few others – quotes because most were down to tropical storm or lower by the time they reached us. The worst so far for us was Isabel, where we experienced 50-60 MPH winds. Lots of rain, but where we live drains not rapidly but well, so we get standing water after any significant rainfall but it goes away relatively fast. Floyd wreaked havoc in all directions from us, but did almost no damage to the community we live in. Gaston for us was a summer rainstorm blown up to brontosaurus size – winds such as might be experienced in any rainstorm, not the gale-force winds of a dying hurricane, but rain like a cloudburst put on infinite repeat cycle.
So for me the tradeoffs of facing the potential of a hurricane are well worth not dealing with New York winter storms and lake effect snow. I realize that we could get a killer-force hurricane someday – but hey, Missouri gets tornadoes, San Francisco earthquakes, Denver gets November and April blizzards – there’s some problem everywhere, which, if you know how to deal with the “normal” problems and recognize that “the Big One” could happen, does not adversely affect your enjoyment of life. God has saved me from certain death through the instrument of wonderful people twice now – I figure He’s got things for me to do that I haven’t finished yet – and when I’m done, I’ll be ready to go – whether by hurricane, car accident, stroke, attacked by killer hamsters, or a peaceful decline surrounded by loved ones and friends. Or even like my namesake, if today’s Pharisees get their way.
Anyway – that was longwinded, and probably not appropriate in parts for GQ – but it was an attempt to respond to “Why would you choose to live…” from my perspective, given that our risk is second only to Florida and maybe Texas.