A day in the life of a Floridian..

Started by Jims5543, October 06, 2016, 01:13:17 PM

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Jims5543

Never been though a hurricane?

Let me take you for a ride.


I was pretty stressed this morning when I woke up and discovered that we had a Cat 4 Hurricane heading right for us. I thought it was going to brush past us. I have a rule to always leave for a Cat 4 or 5 but stay for a Cat 3 or lower, and laugh at tropical storms.

I checked hotels this morning at 5 oclock and everything is booked solid sans some $400 a night rooms.

We decided to stay and ride this out. I think it is a load of bullshit that the media is pumping this storm up to a Cat 4. I have been monitoring weather stations all over the Caribbean and the highest sustained wind I saw wat 60 MPH with the highest gust being 85.

Berry Island Weather Station is still online and updated 10 seconds ago saw Sustained winds at 63 MPH with gusts at 90 and the eye wall passed very close to the station.

There may be 120+ MPH winds I cannot find them.

Fuck you news stations for hyping this to be something it is not. 


This thing is worth is weight in gold. 15KW entire home generator, runs my AC my fridge TV's lights etc... it is on standby ready to do it job. I have 95% fill in the tank which will last me a week at 24/7 running. We plan to turn it off for a few hours 2 to 3 times a day to make it last 2 weeks if needed.



House is shuttered up tight, brand new metal roof. fuck you Mathew we are ready.



Office is probably fucked. I took all the electronics put them in plastic bags  and put them in an interior room with no windows.  Hope the windows hold.




Pulled all the pool solar panels and lashed them to the deck in the back yard that is sunk into the ground. They should not move. They are really protected in this corner.



This is the cool thing about my house, I have a hill behind me that is almost as tall as my house. That hill forces the wind up and over my house. I am standing on it here looking at my house. We typically sit on the back porrch and watch shit get fucked up while drinking and no wind hits us. Once when I evacuated I put a piece of paper on the counter on the back patio. It was in the same place when we returned.



Left a peep hole to look out. It sucks being shuttered in and not being able to see out.



Our view



Side fence is done I do not expect it to make it through this storm. Still, I decided to shore it up in its weakest spots.


In this area I have posts every 4 feet instead of 8 with 2 bags of cement on each post.


Left the framework of the pergola in place, used the boards from the top to cross brace it.  Hope it holds. This is where the pool solar panels typically are.



I could not rest, after this post I am taking a nap, when the storm hits in the middle of the night I will not be able to sleep. Since i have been up since 5 I am beat. I decided to brace the garage door even thought it is rated up to 125 MPH or more not sure.





Got this  on mt cel phone this afternoon all I could think was, No shit!
Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride! -Hunter S. Thompson

John Gervais

Good luck riding it out - Hurricanes can be kinda fun (in an eerie/spooky kinda way) if you're prepared for them.

Would be rather nice for us if you could post the occasional update, assuming of course no risk to yourselves in doing so.
- Pave the Bay -

BruceK

Wow, that's a lot of steps needed to secure your home. I hope you don't end up needing the braces for the garage door, but it can't hurt to help protect your stuff in there. 

I wish you the best over the next 24 hours!   
1988 Austin Mini
2002 MINI Cooper S
1992 Toyota LiteAce (JDM)
1997 Jeep Wrangler Sahara

Jims5543

Quote from: John Gervais on October 06, 2016, 01:25:51 PM
Good luck riding it out - Hurricanes can be kinda fun (in an eerie/spooky kinda way) if you're prepared for them.

Would be rather nice for us if you could post the occasional update, assuming of course no risk to yourselves in doing so.

Gonna try to update as I can.  We were expecting things to get bat a 12:30 today, it has actually been really nice out all the way up until just now, 35 MPH gusts. Light already blinked.  I am shaking my head.  The storm is tracking slightly east of where the forcasters "hoped" it would go, so we are looking pretty good right now.

This is a weather station in Freeport Bahamas, it is about to have the eye pass very close to it.

https://www.wunderground.com/MAR/buoy/SPGF1.html

Top sustained winds 50 MPH top gusts around 60, far cry from the 140 they are telling us.

Maybe the eye wall is very intense, if could be, but 20 miles from the wall there is tropical storm conditions.

I will grab some video when I get a chance.



Quote from: BruceK on October 06, 2016, 01:53:38 PM
Wow, that's a lot of steps needed to secure your home. I hope you don't end up needing the braces for the garage door, but it can't hurt to help protect your stuff in there. 

I wish you the best over the next 24 hours!

That is only part of it. My older son just purchased his first home so I had to help him. I had an old gas powered generator in storage, we dug it out and he has it at his house. We got lucky and found a gas station selling gas this afternoon. We grabbed about 20 gallons for him. 

90% of the gas stations here are out of gas or closed down and not selling.  There is no bread (barely eat it myself)  no milk (do not dink that either) or water on any shelves in any stores here and they have been out since Wednesday.

People are driving like lunatics, weaving in and out of traffic only to sit at the same red lights and repeat over and over.

I have everything I need in my house, Beer, Whiskey and some food. I am good to stay put for the entire weekend. Hoping to take advantage and spend some time wrenching on the mini.  ;D
Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride! -Hunter S. Thompson

John Gervais

"I have everything I need in my house, Beer, Whiskey and some food. I am good to stay put for the entire weekend. Hoping to take advantage and spend some time wrenching on the mini.  ;D"

cool -  77.gif
- Pave the Bay -

MiniDave

Good luck Jim, having that genset capable of running the whole house and the A/C will be a godsend if you all lose power as usual.

I'd be worried about flooding and onshore surge if I lived in Florida, what with the rising sea levels......
Complete failure at retirement

1989 Cooper Racing Green
2009 Clubman S
2014 Audi Allroad

John Gervais

#6
I've been looking at the NOAA website - is there another storm right behind this one?

Text update:  UPDATE



I also suspect the idea behind the mandatory evacuations is in part to create a society of dependents; quell self-reliance/self-sufficiency and ensure a plethora of government care-taker agencies and jobs.
- Pave the Bay -

John Gervais

I guess the second storm is now upgraded to hurricane status - hurricane Nicole - and it's messing with Matthew's track.  It looks like there's going to be a helluva lot of storm surge, as Nicole is northeast of Matthew.  The west side always gets the worst.

Should be interesting for Jim and family, sincerely hope they fair well.
- Pave the Bay -

Jims5543

We are on the backside of it here.

So far so good, power went out at 11:45 this evening. Running the generator and watching tv.

Still have internet. So thats good too.

We get moments but to be honest Wilma in 2005 was WAY worse.

Granted the eye wall is a good 100 miles off the coast.

I was watching a station in Freeport that had the eye pass over ut. Never saw sustained over 80 or gusts over 100.

I am wiped out, grabbed a short nap earlier looking forward for the wind to die down.

Every time it lulls we get another sqaull line that ramps up and gets me anxious.  Again, this is nothing like Wilma. There is no haunting howling wind with the house shaking around you.
Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride! -Hunter S. Thompson

Jims5543

Still grinding here. I think and hope it will be over in another hour or so.

The only damage I see so far is one cross brace on my 35 year old screen enclosure broke loose. We did not expect the enclosure to survive this storm.



I am so beat, rest of family sleeping. Do not know how.
Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride! -Hunter S. Thompson

Jims5543

Heading off to bed to try to sleep. Still have another good hour of 30+ mph winds. After being up for 24 hours straight plus stress plus sweating my ass off all day I am spent.

Here is a weird phenomenon that occurs during a storm the water in your toilet bounces up and down due to the pair pressure. I shot video of it will see if I can share later on today.

Best I can tell we have minimum damage.

The media is hyping this up into something it is not. This is not a Cat4 storm it is barely a Cat1. Hugely irresponsible as now people who are new to this area are going to think a Cat 4 storm is no big deal. I rode out a strong Cat 3 and almost regretted it. This storm was nothing.  I will.prove that tomorrow after I get some pics.

The eyewall.is over Cape Canaveral, max sustained winds 60 gusts to 80.

Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride! -Hunter S. Thompson

Jims5543

Busy busy day here. Storm cleared out I fell asleep around 5:30 shook awake at 6:30 by a bang, then slept until 8:00 when Renee decided it was time for us to go walk around the neighborhood.

No structural damage at all, everything is vegetation damage from not having a storm for 11 years. Across the street from me where the trees have not been trimmed back away from the power lines, they do not have power. Lots of leaves and down branches, saw some trees knocked over. Nothing major like a True Cat4 or Cat 3 storm would do. This was barely a Cat1.

We raked up the yard, cleaned up some, left the shutters mostly up until we see what this thing is going to do.

Then I want to the office for about 3 hours, set everything back up, gave the place a much needed once over cleaning wise. Checked all the computers, server etc.. made sure there were no hiccups.

All good there.

Back home now, gonna grab a shower and a nap.

Tomorrow I am heading to my BIL's house to see what we can do to help them clean up over there.

Toilet bouncing. I love these motion sensing LED lights that light it up at night.


Broken brace, already fixed. Notice the plastic decoration we forgot to pull down. A Cat 4 storm would have destroyed it.



Biggest piece of carnage in my back yard:


Foreclosed empty house across the street, no shutters, a Cat 4 would have destroyed this unprotected house.


Empty rental across street, no shutters same deal, except that PVC fence would have been toast in a Cat4.


Carnage in the neighborhood, never forget, pray for us.


Some wind footage for you all.



Front of my house before the storm:

Front of my house after the storm, look at the trees behind the house:
Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride! -Hunter S. Thompson

MiniDave

I'm still stuck on a the idea of a hill........in Florida!   ;D

Glad to see you're all OK Jim!

We've had T-storms blow worse than that - of course they're overwith in half an hour.
Complete failure at retirement

1989 Cooper Racing Green
2009 Clubman S
2014 Audi Allroad

John Gervais

Love the captions!  I'm sure the palms will fluff up within a few days.  Really glad to hear that the damage was minimal.

We'll pray for you for sure - pray you've got enough beer, pop and hot-dogs for the inevitable hard times ahead.  You're a brave bunch to have ridden this one out and survived, sturdy stuff for sure; an inspiration to many, living proof that Floridians are a resilient bunch.


- Pave the Bay -

MPlayle

Reminds me of riding out typhoon Irma in the Philippines back in 1974.  The eye went right over Clark AFB where we were living.

We had no choice about riding it out - nowhere to evacuate to.


jeff10049

Glad you guys are fine but, as you said what a bunch of hype we have high wind warnings here that do more damage than that. You make a good point about new residents getting the idea that cat4 is nothing, stupid media not that I'm surprised. That and you did a shit ton of unneeded work to prepare for nothing. Although I'd do it anyway just in case.






Jims5543

I am pretty fucking pissed off this evening. I have now wasted 3 days of my life, closed my business for 2 days and gave my employees paid leave, for what? for a storm that came 7 hours after they forecasted it to arrive and to not be anything more than a tropical storm. Which I would have NEVER shuttered up for.  I would have pulled the pool solar panels but left my pergola in place and not bothered with storm shutters.

I just got out of the shower, ate 2 meals today because we have been so busy. Thought I would update real quick before I pass out from exhaustion and alcohol.

I went to my BIL's house to pull his shutters and clean up the place for him while he recuperates from a quadruple bypass surgery in the hospital. Thank god, he has a simple home and only 8 windows to unshutter.  FML my wife came and decided to clean out his shed and organize it.  What should have taken an hour took 4 hours. See those fuckers over in the background? Yeah, they are making this a FUN day!!!


What made this especially fun was that the overcast is gone and the sun is a blazing. Add in heat and humidity and you have yourself a 110 heat index!! Yay!!


Protip, when removing storm panels, check the back of them, if you do not you will end up crushing a frog between the panels, 2 weeks later you are wondering why your garage reeks of death.


I had a pleasant surprise today when I pulled a panel and found a rat snake. I put the panel off to the side and let him wander off.


Did not immediately check this panel looked over to see this, its foot was stuck:


This is how you live and learn, last time we shuttered up was 2005, these are stains from frogs crushed in between the panels. These are my BILS's panels I am sure they stunk up his garage.


This picture does not do justice to what I drove by on my way back from my BIL's house. There were about 40 bucket trucks with linemen and another 15 pickup trucks all lined up staged to head off to work.

We do have a lot of people without power here. Which is really pathetic considering we only had a tropical storm here. But that is okay because the media said it was a Cat4. So widespread power outages are expected.



This pretty much sums up my day, all I did was remove wing nuts and panels on 2 houses today. Which sucks, especially when it was no unneeded.




This is what pisses me off, these are two weather stations both up and running under the storm when it was being called a Cat1 over Georgia and South Carolina.

Sustained winds need to be 75 or more for a storm to be a Cat 1.



This is a buoy on the water, nothing hindering the wind.


If you took the time to find actual radar feed and not "enhanced" radar you would see this storm was falling apart early today.

Now, we have had bad thunderstorms worse than this storm at any given moment. The problem is, imagine a storm with lts say 50 MPH winds, we have all seen them. Now imagine it lasting 6 hours or even 10 hours.

50 MPH is no big deal for 30 minutes, let it beat on something for 8 hours and it will work it loose. Fences fall, shingles will come off, and if it is moving along water it will push a lot of water with it.

That is going to be the big story when this storm is done, the surge of water. This storm traveled a long way and pushed a lot of water with it. Flooding with be the story, wind damage will not. This was NEVER a Cat4 or Cat3 storm, hell you would be hard pressed to call this a Cat1 but I will give the media that.


This is what the media reported, so irresponsible:







Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride! -Hunter S. Thompson

John Gervais

I'm really struggling here; Hyacinth is sleeping and I'm dying to let out a right proper laugh.   

- Pave the Bay -

MPlayle

Did you at least free the frog's foot?

Can't blame the critters for wanting to find a dry place to wait out the storm as well.