Irma, the Hurricane - September 2017

[twocvbloke]

Time to move inland, so long as it's not into Tornado Alley...

[Pourme]

With two or so days to go befor landfall, it's not looking good for most of Florida, Georgia and parts of South Carolina.

I live in the Western North Carolina foothills...Yesterday there was not one drop of bottled water or bread left in our Walmart!

My Great Grandmother used to say "I'm going to 'stock up' before people start hoarding"

[twocvbloke]

I really don't get the idea of buying up bottled water stripping the shelves of the stuff, do these people forget they have water piped to their homes before an incident? And that it'd be infinitely easier to just buy some white plastic jerry cans to fill with fresh tap water? Silly people...

[19and41]

The same thought has occurred to many people here.  That is what they are doing instead of having fist fights over bottled water at Walmart.  That won't get them in the news though.   

[TelePlay]

Yes, exactly, and you don't even need jerry cans.

A box or two of 2 gallon double zip lock bags, freezer bags filled 75% of the way if you are going to put them into the freezer or regular bags filled full for the refrigerator, will provide a lot of cool water if the power goes out. The rest of the bags can be filled and put into the bath tub, car or wherever.

Thinking outside the box, using common sense, is something many people who now depend on the TV bobble heads to tell them what to do and how to panic are no  longer capable of doing.

A box of bags is just a few bucks and easily disposed of after no longer needed.

[twocvbloke]

That's actually a very good idea, never even thought of doing that myself...

[jsowers]

I wash out and save gallon and half-gallon milk jugs for lots of things and this is a good use for them. Anything that goes in the freezer should be 3/4 full as John said. I have bags of ice in the freezer anyway, so I put my water in the fridge.

Putting water in the freezer and letting it freeze is a good idea so if you have a power outage, the ice will help keep your food cold like an ice chest.

I'm hoping NC will just have high winds and rain for two days, but we'll see. The temps here are almost record cold in the evenings, so I hope that cool weather helps deflate the storm.

I didn't see it when I was there earlier in the afternoon, but my mom said Aldi's was out of bottled water later in the afternoon yesterday. We have a great water system here and it comes from the Yadkin River. We've used it since 1968 when it was first run by the house and it's never been down, that I recall. Even more dependable than a POTS line.

[19and41]

A powerless refrigerator with the frozen water in the freezer can make for an acceptable ice box as well.

[TelePlay]

Looking at the current cone, jet stream, surface winds and surface high/low pressure cell and how they are moving, I can see why the computer modeled tracks are moving to the west. If this keeps up, Irma could go over key west and hardly touch Florida and hit the pan handle or west of there, the area where Camile hit in 1969. Don't know.

I look at it every 6 hours or so and just observe what has happened since the last look. Seems the jet stream pulled out and the high pressure cells to the north west would keep the hurricane from moving north or north east. Time will tell.

The ensemble tracks right now have all moved to the west but with over a day to go, know one knows what will happen, just what has happened.

Proves one thing though, the panic the news media started a week ago was based on something that is now known to be wrong.

[TelePlay]

I split this off of the Let it Snow topic because it was taking on a life of its own and it may be some of the members who life in the affected areas may want to post what happened along with photos, it will grow over time.

[LarryInMichigan]

I hope that nobody here has any important packages sitting at the USPS OPA LOCKA storage/sorting facility.


Larry

[HarrySmith]

Well it appears we will not be getting a direct hit but the entire state will feel some effects. A lot of people fled the east coast for the west coast a few days ago to get out if the direct path and now they are right in it! The news did a great job of freaking people out. We are ready at our place. We have gas for the generator, food, water, batteries and lights. I dug out the old DVD player and plugged it in to the TV, still works! If power goes out we loose cable but I can plug TV & DVD in to the generator so we can watch old movies!  Yesterday I gave in to my wife and boarded up the windows. Spent a couple of hours in line at Home Depot to get wood. Ended up with fence planks, they were cheap and worked out well, pictures of 2 out of 3 windows attached, I did not feel like walking across all the wet grass to get a picture of the bedroom window. Now we just sit and wait.

[Doug Rose]

Good Luck Harry.....I hope you ride the storm out with minimal damage......I am thinking of you....Doug

[Pourme]

Much luck, Harry!

[TelePlay]

Harry,

Yes, hope it all works out well for you. Nothing like being prepared. And, when I first looked at the pictures before reading your comments, I thought you took down your fence and used it on your windows.

When you said people headed for the west coast, my first thought was California. But, yes, that what the panicnosticators do just to fill air time and create a need to watch for ratings to justify ad rates. It's only a money game in the media these day, no real concern about the people or their need to know facts.

Here's the cone from 3 day ago and today. Guess their mathematical models really can't predict anything more than a day or two in advance, much less the average temperature of the planet or the sea level 20 years from today - GIGO.

The way it's been hugging the Cuban coastline (5 days ago it was predicted to be making a beeline for Miami and not touch Cuba), a parameter their models couldn't handle or missed, that kept it moving near due west and moving the track to the west.

Never been to Key West but Google Maps shows mostly older, one story buildings. Wouldn't want to be there right now.