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Hurricane Irma

Downgraded to a Cat 3, still no joke. Here's an urgent message from NWS:

Hurricane Irma Tropical Cyclone Update NWS National Hurricane Center Miami FL AL112017 215 PM EDT Sun Sep 10 2017 ...URGENT...WATER LEVELS FROM STORM SURGE TO RISE RAPIDLY IN THE NAPLES AND MARCO ISLAND AREA... With the passage of the eye of Irma during the next couple of hours, the wind direction will shift to onshore, causing water levels along the southwest coast of Florida to rapidly rise in a matter of minutes. MOVE AWAY FROM THE WATER! Life-threatening storm surge inundation of 10 to 15 feet above ground level is expected in this area. $$ Forecaster Brennan/Rappaport

Looking at the water levels for Naples, they're down 4ft below normal (time now) with the offshore winds, but those will rapidly shift as the eye gets past. Hopefully timing causes it to occur at the outgoing tide, but you can see it on the upswing right now.

​​​​​​https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/waterlevels.html?id=8725110&datum=MHHW&timezone=LST&units=standard

8725110wlmhhw.png
 
Close as I will get to eye now pretty nasty. Should begin waning from here. Hell of a ride.
 
Watching the 75 foot pines swaying back and forth out my back door. Problem is they are only 30 feet from the house. It's like N.J.P., waiting is the hardest part.
Jacksonville FL
 
I've been watching WESH out of Orlando on Chromecast. My son in Winter Park has been surrounded by tornado warnings for the last couple of hours.
Haven't heard from him in about 30 minutes, since there was one very near his house. Not freaking out yet, but this ain't easy.
 
I'm just amazed at how mild it's been here at my house.
Fairly steady rain all day and wind gusts just above 50mph.
The trees 50' to the north of my house are blocking almost all of the winds. 15yr old oaks are protecting the front of the house.
Winds really feel like 20-25mph in gusts and a steady 15-20.
I know they are heavier because I can see trees 1/4 mile away swaying like crazy.

Hope everyone else going through this is having the same good fortune.
 
Heard from the kid. He's fine so far. Gonna be a LONG night. His last hurricane was back in 2003. he and I were bacheloring while the women were traveling to NYC.
We had a good time. Power went off for days. I showed him how make do with what you have, including cooking a frozen pizza on the grill.
 
Heard from the kid. He's fine so far. Gonna be a LONG night. His last hurricane was back in 2003. he and I were bacheloring while the women were traveling to NYC.
We had a good time. Power went off for days. I showed him how make do with what you have, including cooking a frozen pizza on the grill.

Glad to hear you made contact. Prayers sent.
 
Quick note to those getting out and about the next day and onward, be VERY careful on the roadways if you drive. Treat intersections as a 4-way stop, watch for cross traffic that don't regard this rule, go slow and with the flow of traffic, and if you don't HAVE to be on the roads, DON'T BE, nothing is going to be open anyhow. Powerlines will be everywhere, most will be cold but who wants to chance one being hot so be careful. Just let the recovery crews do their thing without rubberneckers running them over or otherwise delaying the recovery effort.
 
New arrival just a bit overwhelmed by everything ...

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Quiet now. Lost my standby gen after about five hours off on over speed. If I cant get it fixed when it gets light I will get a back up from my office. neighbor lost weather head so they will have to cut him lose before we have any hope of power. Darkest night ever. My sons came through fine. One came close to water in house but just made it.

Trees down own blocking roads shit everywhere but that's expected. I will look around in the morning.. with the entire state involved right after Texas, recovery is gonna be slow I think.
 
Heard from my son in Winter Park. No serious damages. Neighbor's fence blew down and somebody's mailbox with post is in his back yard. Power is off.
 
Not much is being said about the destruction in Cuba.
That's because we're focused (rightly so) on the destruction in our country and in our part of the Caribbean. Their land, their mess, their problems.


I understand our general sentiment towards their form of government, but the people at last report were still swimming in the streets
The same people who chant "America is evil" are swimming in the streets? Bless their hearts.......


Putin has offered aid
Good for him


Should we?
FUCK NO. When are going to ever learn the lesson that the rest of the world is a bunch of ungrateful fucks, and the communist world is doubly so? Not ONE fucking cent more for foreign aid, particularly when OUR people are hurting.


Fuck huffpo too. Maybe their stupid ass readers can volunteer their own cash and their own time in Cuba. My tax dollars? Hell no.


I will NEVER forgive a government and a people who GLEEFULLY stripped a segment of their population from their property and wealth and then cast them out with nothing but the clothes on their backs. I wish them nothing but pain, misery, and suffering.
 
"So, on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being that you are absolutely in favor of such aid, and 10 being absolutely against it, would you say that you are a 7?"

*poke* *poke*

;)
 
"So, on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being that you are absolutely in favor of such aid, and 10 being absolutely against it, would you say that you are a 7?"

*poke* *poke*

;)

Turn it up to 11 for me, baby
 
Genset stator grounded after 5 hours first time used other than exercising. Got back ups. Office has power so back to business tomorrow thanks for all the good wishes.
 
Here in very Southeast Alabama we had (and are still having) pretty strong winds (nothing like they had in FL, though). Tree fell on my in-law's house across town and a tree snapped off and landed on my neighbor's fence. Not too much damage here. We were spared. Never lost power (at least not yet) which is a miracle because our power goes out at the slightest hint of wind. Still windy. Not near as much rain as I was expecting.
 
Look what those damned Confederate statues were doing during the hurricane.

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Got word from my dad that their house (as reported by a friend who drove by) appears undamaged. Family is on the move back south.
 
They are not letting some people back in their areas yet. Maybe tomorrow afternoon. Some I hear some have been looted.
 
Do you know personally know any Cubans who left their homeland with nothing, their only crime being prosperous?

I do

Fuck Cuba and every communist Cuban with a rusty spike. They can all burn in hell for all I care.

Why yes, I do. Several, like my buddy Carlos Hernandez.

And if thats how you feel towards fellow human beings, then...nah, youre not worth the insult.
 
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Number two son without power, but no damage to house. Neighbor caught a tree with his roof, but not too bad..
 
Fuck that bitch. I'd make an exception to my rule about not striking women, just for her.
 
Referring to them as Looters is racist. CNN wants us to refer to them as Undocumented Shoppers.
Cheers. sirhr

Give them a break they were out walking in a 50 MPH wind and they saw those Air Jordans suffering and they rescued them. :) Upstanding citizens. At my house I introduce them to Heckler and Koch.
 
Not all Hollyweird and pro sports types are useless and self-absorbed.



Tim Tebow visited an Irma shelter and spent some time with a WWII vet.

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Kristen Bell was in Orlando working on a movie when Irma came calling, so she took shelter with others. She could have sat in a corner and asked people to leave her alone, but instead she turned the whole thing into a big party.

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image_71465.png Now that I can get online, I guess an after action report is due.
We are on the east side of Tampa bay about 15 miles inland. On the map we are just south east of Brandon.

Got a text earlier in the day from a friend saying he was headed to the east coast near Sebastian inlet.
More on that later...

We stayed up until midnight waiting for the winds to really kick up. The wind was more like a tropical depression. Power went out somewhere around 10-10:30
Went to bed and woke around 2-
:15-2:30. It was eerily silent and the frogs were talking up a storm. Had to be the eye. Went back to bed and slept through the night. (My house is deadly silent due to all the insulation)
Woke around 6:45 and boiled some water to make a couple of pour-over coffees.
While the water was coming up to a boil I went out to check the house and look at the neighborhood.
My yard has a lot of pine boughs in the back and oak tips in the font. The largest single piece of debris is a stick two feet long and the diameter of my pinky.
Two houses down from me a small tree fell over on to their next door neighbor's car. The car looked just fine.
That was the extent of damage on my culdesac.
Rebecca and I took a walk last night and we found three more trees knocked over and they are all small 12-15 year old trees.

A fellow hider named John from Jacksonville has been working to get their 480,000v power up. (I wrote it out that way because I missed the k part when he texted me and I thought he was working a nice little 480v system)
John lost a few roof tiles and a couple of fence panels.

A couple of friends from around this little community reported zero damage.

My brother lost three fence panels from a 20 year old fence. No surprise there.

Texted Mike Oneshot and he was firing up the crane truck to go clear downed trees around his neck of the woods.

Remember the fishing buddy that headed to the east coast? Well, here's how it went over there.
They were getting winds that rattled the roof, shook the walls and caused trees to snap.
He woke to find the streets lined with litter, roof tiles and lots of siding and branches. A couple of houses over, a boat had been lifted and wedged between a pair of palm trees.
Get this, as he was pulling into the driveway Sunday morning his master cylinder went to shit and he had no brakes. Nice pucker factor there.
Being the smartass I am, I told him that staying home might have been a better option.

Rebecca is back at work this morning at the Sheriff's office, the skies are clear and sunny. Overall, it hit our house more like a topical storm and we're more than thankful for that.
Power is still out and that's okay. The TECO truck that was in our area was just driving the high tension lines looking for any issues. The kids in the neighborhood were all chatty that they were here to power us back up. Unfortunately I gave it too much thought and hope. We'll get it when we get it.

The attached pic is pretty much the storm track. We are the little blue dot south east of Tampa.

BTW, power just came back on. Yaaaay!
 
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All i know is fema better get its little ass up here and clean these leaves off the trampoline.
 
Well, from the east coast of Central Florida I can report that we had more damage than Mike C. near Tampa. Our power went out 6:30p Sunday. We were getting spin-off tornadoes through this area all evening and night. My property is quite wooded, so u have a ton of tree cleanup to do.

I started cleanup yesterday by cutting up the medium sized oak that took out my gutters and closed off the front windows and door. There is plenty of localized flooding, but my property is high and dry even though I live on a lake. It's all about elevation.

Plenty of roofs missing shingles including the neighbor's house. It belongs/ed to the sweetest old lady who just passed two weeks ago, three days shy of her 103rd birthday.

A neighbor three houses down had his small generator stolen about an hour into the power outage. He heard it shut off, so went into the garage to get more gas and when he walked out there was a small car driving off with his generator.

I expect power here to be out for a few more days, so it's cold showers by flashlight before going to work for a while.
 
boy i tell you,,,i couldnt be prouder of any `group of people than around here...
after the storm, everyone and i mean everyone is after it...
and when i say after it i fuckin mean it, god damned human ants, fuckin everywhere.

we were spared here, some are without power but damn, we will take that any day

i have resorces so if i can pass them off to trust worthy folks, i will, send info via pm

fuckin americans rock
 
boy i tell you,,,i couldnt be prouder of any `group of people than around here...
after the storm, everyone and i mean everyone is after it...
and when i say after it i fuckin mean it, god damned human ants, fuckin everywhere.

we were spared here, some are without power but damn, we will take that any day

i have resorces so if i can pass them off to trust worthy folks, i will, send info via pm

fuckin americans rock

Damn glad you guys are doing well as can be. Appreciate the update's on how you guys fared.
 
Awesomeness Mike.
The neighbors around the corner got together and cleaned up to include sweeping the streets and gutters.
Afterward, they gathered in a front yard and had a post Irma party. Good for them.
Rebecca and I walked past them while they were gathered and not a single one would respond to the hellos and hi there from us. Apparently we're not part of their clique.
For some reason, I'm okay with that.

We're taking care of the last thing now. A light raking of leaves. Doubt it will fill 2 bags. Prolly should have just run the mower and bag over it, but I love watching the kids bitch at each other over a simple job. ;^)

Mike,
I'm dead serious, if you would like some help, give me a shout and I'll be right over.

Just had A two second brown out. Hopefully they got some other folks up on the grid.
 
Awesomeness Mike.
The neighbors around the corner got together and cleaned up to include sweeping the streets and gutters.
Afterward, they gathered in a front yard and had a post Irma party. Good for them.
Rebecca and I walked past them while they were gathered and not a single one would respond to the hellos and hi there from us. Apparently we're not part of their clique.
For some reason, I'm okay with that.

We're taking care of the last thing now. A light raking of leaves. Doubt it will fill 2 bags. Prolly should have just run the mower and bag over it, but I love watching the kids bitch at each other over a simple job. ;^)

Mike,
I'm dead serious, if you would like some help, give me a shout and I'll be right over.

Just had A two second brown out. Hopefully they got some other folks up on the grid.

The neighbors not saying hello is bullshit, but rather than a "clique" that sounds like "damn Yankees" which aren't uncommon in your parts.

When oneshot86 and I spoke earlier he was running around but seemed to have shit well in hand (no surprise). I'd anticipated heading y'all's way to lend a hand and maybe pick up some work, but unless I hear differently from his tree service guy it appears that "Florida has this shit".