Irma

The Steinholme stands ready to receive refugee pilots from the south. We are, of course a long way North...
 
Water has already sold out of many places here in Sarasota. Sam's club sold 40 pallets this morning. Most of the Tampa Bay area is sold out of water as well.

I looked (on a whim) on Amazon and while it's pretty cheap, it won't get here before the storm unless you are willing to pay about $500 to expedite delivery and even then it may not get here before the storm.
 
Caramon13 said:
Water has already sold out of many places here in Sarasota. Sam's club sold 40 pallets this morning. Most of the Tampa Bay area is sold out of water as well.

I looked (on a whim) on Amazon and while it's pretty cheap, it won't get here before the storm unless you are willing to pay about $500 to expedite delivery and even then it may not get here before the storm.
Click to expand...

Orlando was selling out as well.
 
It's funny, my wife wants to wait until Thursday to see what happens. I'm like "Hell no"! By then you better be prepared, not starting to prepare.

Granted we won't know what path this thing will take until probably at least that time but waiting until the last minute is not a good idea...
 
mulligan said:
Does anyone know where Jim Cantore is?
Click to expand...

Between some chick's...ahh never mind that. I was watching some Weather Ch coverage of Harvey and he was on all over the place. Standing in water of course. :D
 
N659HB said:
My hangar is at 570' MSL. I should be ok. My wife will be closely watching this one. The last one (Joaquin) gave us a thousand-year flood. Some local roads are still closed two years later.

edited to add Storm ID
Click to expand...

Funny how Harvey was just labeled as a "thousand year flood," also. Signs of the Alpaca Lips or real data of storm intensities increasing from global climate change? Sea levels are about 7" higher now than 100 yrs ago. Storm surges are more intense because of that.
 
wow. That was not that way a day or two ago. I found the link on instapundit, made a book mark.

As always, a few days before a hurricane is not the time to prepare for the hurricane.
 
Out of water at Publix near me..bought a bunch of BOGO gallons of tea. Might keep one, but gonna dump the rest and refill with H2O. That plus a bathtub and containers at home and all the food we have, should be good. And..even got a case of beer for fun :).
 
No water around me, we went to several Publix locations and all were out. Good news is I have a 1000lb. in ground gas tank and can cook for a few months. So I can boil water, yep, we will be filling up both bath tubs. We bought non-perishables today to last at least 5 days. I am sure we could eat for 7-8 days no problem tho. Gas everything up and we are good to go.
 
185 mph SUSTAINED winds reported near the eye. Unimaginable.
 
azure said:
Wow. That is a monster. With winds that strong, Saffir-Simpson really needs a Category 6.
Click to expand...
As I understand it, anything at Category 5 causes nearly the same damage, whether the winds are 158 mph, or 188 mph...but I agree, a "6" would make sense, at least in charting rising/falling strengths...
 
Jeff Cutler said:
185 mph SUSTAINED winds reported near the eye. Unimaginable.
Click to expand...

Second strongest hurricane ever and the strongest ever in the open Atlantic. As it nears the warmer waters of the Carribean Sea and possibly the Gulf, who knows where it will top out. Of course, any landmasses that it passes over could knock it down to non record status. All I know is that I want no part of it.
 
185G225

In that wind I could land like helicopter, open the hangar door with a remote and back right in.
 
tawood said:
As I understand it, anything at Category 5 causes nearly the same damage, whether the winds are 158 mph, or 188 mph...
Click to expand...

Pretty sure you understand wrong.

Both are catastrophic, but 188 mph winds have a lot more energy than 158 mph winds - energy increases as the square of the increase in velocity.
 
This is the weekend,that I usually move my plane to KSRQ,for the season. Looks like I will be staying north a little longer this year.
 
Local weather broadcaster, Brian James of NBC 5, overlaid Irma onto the map of Texas....

"As a size comparison, I overlaid an image of Hurricane Irma over the state of Texas. Irma is not just a powerful hurricane, it's also massive."​

21272331_2039125452974397_4405993528104072406_n.jpg
 
If only we could somehow harness this big wind for power generation....
 
Caramon13 said:
Out of water at Publix near me..bought a bunch of BOGO gallons of tea. Might keep one, but gonna dump the rest and refill with H2O. That plus a bathtub and containers at home and all the food we have, should be good. And..even got a case of beer for fun :).
Click to expand...

A man's gotta know his priorities.....
 
If I have to go through another hurricane from ground zero, I'm damn sure going to have the makings for margaritas. The power-out hot-as-ballz aftermath would have been better tolerated with some anesthetic.
 
teejayevans said:
185G225

In that wind I could land like helicopter, open the hangar door with a remote and back right in.
Click to expand...

In that wind, you wouldn't have a hangar to back into.
 
FastEddieB said:
Pretty sure you understand wrong.

Both are catastrophic, but 188 mph winds have a lot more energy than 158 mph winds - energy increases as the square of the increase in velocity.
Click to expand...

What they probably meant to say is (still incorrect) that a cat 5 results in total destruction, so a cat 6 is superfluous.
 
teejayevans said:
185G225

In that wind I could land like helicopter, open the hangar door with a remote and back right in.
Click to expand...

I heard that tonight, gusting up to 235, or maybe it was 225. But what's 10 kts between friends right?
 
Caramon13 said:
It's funny, my wife wants to wait until Thursday to see what happens. I'm like "Hell no"! By then you better be prepared, not starting to prepare.

Granted we won't know what path this thing will take until probably at least that time but waiting until the last minute is not a good idea...
Click to expand...
Nothing wrong with starting to prepare, but it isn't going to hit Key West until early Sunday. You have a little time.

Bad thing is it won't matter which side of Florida you are on. Looks like it's gonna be ugly on both coasts.
 
I'm sitting in Naples right now staying at my mom's house. She's not here, my family and I are just using the house for the week. We've got a commercial flight booked out of here on Saturday that we don't think will be canceled. That's plan A. Plan B is to take my moms car and drive out. Plan C is riding it out with three kids under 5. We don't want to get to plan C, but we're trying to make sure we've got some essentials squirreled away in case we don't have a choice.
 
Caramon13 said:
Water has already sold out of many places here in Sarasota. Sam's club sold 40 pallets this morning. Most of the Tampa Bay area is sold out of water as well.

I looked (on a whim) on Amazon and while it's pretty cheap, it won't get here before the storm unless you are willing to pay about $500 to expedite delivery and even then it may not get here before the storm.
Click to expand...

Caramon13 said:
It's funny, my wife wants to wait until Thursday to see what happens. I'm like "Hell no"! By then you better be prepared, not starting to prepare.

Granted we won't know what path this thing will take until probably at least that time but waiting until the last minute is not a good idea...
Click to expand...

Publix has sold out water in ALL of Hillsborough, Pasco, Pinellas and Polk county.

If I had a choice to leave early or just on time.....I rather leave early. All of the schools in Miami are going to be closed on Thursday and Friday. Not many roads in and out of Miami and Key West so thousands of people are going to be on the roads all at the same time. Last weekend it took me 3 hours to get from Orlando FL to Tampa, (Which should take 1 hour and a half driving) because of a car fire imagine what hundreds of thousands of people will do on the roads to traffic. Leave early, it will save you time AND money and maybe your life!
 
FloridaPilot said:
Publix has sold out water in ALL of Hillsborough, Pasco, Pinellas and Polk county.

If I had a choice to leave early or just on time.....I rather leave early. All of the schools in Miami are going to be closed on Thursday and Friday. Not many roads in and out of Miami and Key West so thousands of people are going to be on the roads all at the same time. Last weekend it took me 3 hours to get from Orlando FL to Tampa, (Which should take 1 hour and a half driving) because of a car fire imagine what hundreds of thousands of people will do on the roads to traffic. Leave early, it will save you time AND money and maybe your life!
Click to expand...

Early 80s (forget the storm & year) I left Ft Walton Beach for Montgomery for what is usually a 3 to 3 1/2 hour drive, took over 7 hours and no rooms available until Birmingham. In laws in Montgomery so I was good. So yes, leave early, not worth the risk besides the traffic jam.
 
mscard88 said:
Early 80s (forget the storm & year) I left Ft Walton Beach for Montgomery for what is usually a 3 to 3 1/2 hour drive, took over 7 hours and no rooms available until Birmingham. In laws in Montgomery so I was good. So yes, leave early, not worth the risk besides the traffic jam.
Click to expand...

Hmmm...you are probably talking about Andrew. Among the very few Cat 5's that hit Florida
 
bluesky74656 said:
I'm sitting in Naples right now staying at my mom's house. She's not here, my family and I are just using the house for the week. We've got a commercial flight booked out of here on Saturday that we don't think will be canceled. That's plan A. Plan B is to take my moms car and drive out. Plan C is riding it out with three kids under 5. We don't want to get to plan C, but we're trying to make sure we've got some essentials squirreled away in case we don't have a choice.
Click to expand...
You do have a choice...leave now. I'm sure you'll be out some airline tickets. But you can count on Murphy's law kicking your arse when it comes to those airline seats being a sure thing on Saturday.

I'm not a licensed pilot...yet. But this sounds just like a aviation decision making scenario. Plan C sounds like "I can try and fly through it". Plan A sounds like "I think I can fly around it". And plan B sounds like: "There's no way I can control this friggin' thing, I'm driving RIGHT NOW before it turns into Plan C or Plan D or who knows what". Three kids under 5......perfectly good car before the roads get all tied up....hmmm?
 
If this thing hits Florida I can't imagine the disaster. Not only do you have all the poor people trapped in demolished buildings up to their necks in Odin only knows what, but you'll have tens of thousands stuck on the roadways after everyone decided to leave at the last minute.
 
I do have a hard cut off set for the drive/fly decision to be made. If the flight is at all doubtful at that point, we'll be on the road with time to spare.
 
Mike Smith said:
Honestly, if I were in south Florida I'd leave now.
Click to expand...
That is a worthy point.

Most of my evac plans are based on loading my family in the aircraft and flying well away from the area.

If you are faced with driving out and wait until Friday to hit the road...the roads are probably going to be parking lots.
 
FloridaPilot said:
Publix has sold out water in ALL of Hillsborough, Pasco, Pinellas and Polk county.

If I had a choice to leave early or just on time.....I rather leave early. All of the schools in Miami are going to be closed on Thursday and Friday. Not many roads in and out of Miami and Key West so thousands of people are going to be on the roads all at the same time. Last weekend it took me 3 hours to get from Orlando FL to Tampa, (Which should take 1 hour and a half driving) because of a car fire imagine what hundreds of thousands of people will do on the roads to traffic. Leave early, it will save you time AND money and maybe your life!
Click to expand...

To @Fearless Tower 's point I think I'm going to see what the storm is doing before I make a decision. Right now it looks like a western trend is happening, a lot more so then it did 24 hours ago. My money's on the panhandle getting hit hard, but that's just a guess on a very unpredictable track. Unlike @bluesky74656 my first instinct isn't evacuation..that's my plan C. Plan A is sit it out. Plan B is shelter if necessary. Where in the heck would you evacuate anyway if you don't have the money to fly your whole family out of state AND put them up in a hotel AND...etc. This thing is gonna affect the entire east coast.

If I still owned my plane I might consider taking a quick 4 hour flight to NC to stay over with my mother in law for a few days. Since I don't I will most likely make the best of it. School's are still in session around my area through Friday (unless I hear differently), work hasn't made a call yet on what they are doing and I'm not quite convinced this thing is even going to hit my area directly at this point.

Hurricanes are a way of life here in FL. If we evacuated for every single one of them we'd never get any work done in the late summer :).
 
bluesky74656 said:
I do have a hard cut off set for the drive/fly decision to be made. If the flight is at all doubtful at that point, we'll be on the road with time to spare.
Click to expand...
Good to hear! Oh yeah, my wifey (and former airline pilot) had a suggestion...call the airline now they might be more than happy to fly you out early.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top