I really don’t want to write about crap in Washington when Irma is tearing up Florida. If you’re affected by the weather, please tell us about it in the comments.
14 thoughts on “Irma Day”
We evacuated to NC from Fl and are watching closely. There is a magnitude of difference to being worried about whether the roof will blow off your house in Florida when you are in North Carolina v whether you are worried whether the roof will blow off when you are in it.
I’m still here in Dunedin. I don’t know what to expect but I’ll take it as it comes. Not that I’m being one of those assholes who think they can stare down the forces of nature, but I have nowhere to go and too large a family to transport out.
One of my fears is that I have huge 60 year old Magnolia tree that was planted about twelve feet from the house. I also have a huge Poinciana tree that can do some severe damage if it comes down on the house.
I was in hurricane Gloria in New York back in 85 and we were without power of 8 days. That’s no fun. I hope I don’t have to repeat that experience. I also lost some trees in that storm, and I realized that one of the reasons that the trees go down is not only the force of the wind..it’s the rain soaked ground that weakens it anchoring ability. Especially here in Florida, the soil is just sand.
I have family in Naples, Fl. who decided in the end to ‘ride it out’. After an agony of waiting I’ve heard that they’re OK, in a neighborhood fairly devastated by wind damage. The storm surge has yet to arrive.
Everything we know about global warming says that storms driven by heat energy, like Irma, will become more common and more violent, in the coming years. Combined with rising sea levels, most coastal settlements and cities are in increasing danger as the years go by with no real action by society to mitigate or slow global warming emissions. Why is this so hard? How many more Irmas and Harveys will we need this year, and the next, and the next?
Swami, last thing I’ve seen the storm is weakening significantly, hopefully the winds have died out a bit by the time it gets north to you! Good luck.
It’s starting to kick in with high winds ( frightening type winds).. Just got an alert on my phone to take shelter immediately. The major portion of the storm is due to arrive in the area at 2 am, that’s another 6 hours from now.
The storm has been down graded to a cat 2..but that’s still a wind speed of between 95 and 110 MPH.
My nephew down in Ft Meyers still has his electrical power after getting hit with a cat 3. I hear that 2 million people in Florida are without power.
Today I’ve spent a lot of time trying to imagine what my friends down in Florida are going through. From there, maybe I can move to imagining what most people whom I’ve never known are going through. My friends are on the vulnerable side, older houses, older bodies and their share of disabilities. Those things complicate things a bit.
Welcome to NC Doug, if you get into a scrape, let me know.
Boy Swami, you’re right. It’s just sand. We’ve got a very tough red clay. If you have to dig a grave for a goat, you’ll feel your age. If a horse dies, you’ve got a major project on your hands. Fortunately, you can usually find some help. It takes a lot of sustained rainfall to soften the ground, but, once in a while it happens. We also get little twisters that take down a few trees. Once we lost seven. But, we had enough firewood the following year. Of course that all seems trivial compared to what you all are looking at.
We’ll see you on the other side of the storm. Best of luck.
Is that any relationship to Doris Day?
Her movies always had a happy ending!
This one …I don’t think so!
Most of my friends seem to have made it through, some still have power. The storm surge in the Tampa area is a few hours off and my most vulnerable friends live there. They have disabilities and an older house. I don’t expect to hear from them for a few days.
One of my friends very narrowly escape the storm surge. He said the road became a stream and very quickly a river. He got out just in time.
I am told I still have a roof on the house. Swami, how fare thee?
We are lucky, here in Sarasota, that the storm had downgraded quite a bit. It was scary to listen to, but we had boarded up everything and the real annoyance was having the power go off at 4 pm on Sunday. Restless night for everyone, and lots of branches to pick up and haul to the curb today. 3 doors down a massive old oak upended itself, but missed both its house and the one next door. We even had power back on by 9 am Monday.
Oh, it totally sucked. 6 hours of 100 plus mph winds, snapping trees, the howl of tornadoes, two hours of sleep, waking up to a smashed landscape. I’m so glad I took care of my body when I was young, because I have about three months of cleanup. No structural damage, no bodily injury, but work out the wazoo. My big buddy cat jumped into the bath tub not knowing it was full, then proceeded to run across my face; a wee bit o’ comedy relief. 🙂
I’m alive…3 days without power. Didn’t Jesus do 3 days without power also? Maybe we have something in common?
Testicles, Swami, Testicles is what you have in common. Heh. 🙂
We evacuated to NC from Fl and are watching closely. There is a magnitude of difference to being worried about whether the roof will blow off your house in Florida when you are in North Carolina v whether you are worried whether the roof will blow off when you are in it.
I’m still here in Dunedin. I don’t know what to expect but I’ll take it as it comes. Not that I’m being one of those assholes who think they can stare down the forces of nature, but I have nowhere to go and too large a family to transport out.
One of my fears is that I have huge 60 year old Magnolia tree that was planted about twelve feet from the house. I also have a huge Poinciana tree that can do some severe damage if it comes down on the house.
I was in hurricane Gloria in New York back in 85 and we were without power of 8 days. That’s no fun. I hope I don’t have to repeat that experience. I also lost some trees in that storm, and I realized that one of the reasons that the trees go down is not only the force of the wind..it’s the rain soaked ground that weakens it anchoring ability. Especially here in Florida, the soil is just sand.
I have family in Naples, Fl. who decided in the end to ‘ride it out’. After an agony of waiting I’ve heard that they’re OK, in a neighborhood fairly devastated by wind damage. The storm surge has yet to arrive.
Everything we know about global warming says that storms driven by heat energy, like Irma, will become more common and more violent, in the coming years. Combined with rising sea levels, most coastal settlements and cities are in increasing danger as the years go by with no real action by society to mitigate or slow global warming emissions. Why is this so hard? How many more Irmas and Harveys will we need this year, and the next, and the next?
Swami, last thing I’ve seen the storm is weakening significantly, hopefully the winds have died out a bit by the time it gets north to you! Good luck.
It’s starting to kick in with high winds ( frightening type winds).. Just got an alert on my phone to take shelter immediately. The major portion of the storm is due to arrive in the area at 2 am, that’s another 6 hours from now.
The storm has been down graded to a cat 2..but that’s still a wind speed of between 95 and 110 MPH.
My nephew down in Ft Meyers still has his electrical power after getting hit with a cat 3. I hear that 2 million people in Florida are without power.
Today I’ve spent a lot of time trying to imagine what my friends down in Florida are going through. From there, maybe I can move to imagining what most people whom I’ve never known are going through. My friends are on the vulnerable side, older houses, older bodies and their share of disabilities. Those things complicate things a bit.
Welcome to NC Doug, if you get into a scrape, let me know.
Boy Swami, you’re right. It’s just sand. We’ve got a very tough red clay. If you have to dig a grave for a goat, you’ll feel your age. If a horse dies, you’ve got a major project on your hands. Fortunately, you can usually find some help. It takes a lot of sustained rainfall to soften the ground, but, once in a while it happens. We also get little twisters that take down a few trees. Once we lost seven. But, we had enough firewood the following year. Of course that all seems trivial compared to what you all are looking at.
We’ll see you on the other side of the storm. Best of luck.
Is that any relationship to Doris Day?
Her movies always had a happy ending!
This one …I don’t think so!
Most of my friends seem to have made it through, some still have power. The storm surge in the Tampa area is a few hours off and my most vulnerable friends live there. They have disabilities and an older house. I don’t expect to hear from them for a few days.
One of my friends very narrowly escape the storm surge. He said the road became a stream and very quickly a river. He got out just in time.
I am told I still have a roof on the house. Swami, how fare thee?
We are lucky, here in Sarasota, that the storm had downgraded quite a bit. It was scary to listen to, but we had boarded up everything and the real annoyance was having the power go off at 4 pm on Sunday. Restless night for everyone, and lots of branches to pick up and haul to the curb today. 3 doors down a massive old oak upended itself, but missed both its house and the one next door. We even had power back on by 9 am Monday.
Oh, it totally sucked. 6 hours of 100 plus mph winds, snapping trees, the howl of tornadoes, two hours of sleep, waking up to a smashed landscape. I’m so glad I took care of my body when I was young, because I have about three months of cleanup. No structural damage, no bodily injury, but work out the wazoo. My big buddy cat jumped into the bath tub not knowing it was full, then proceeded to run across my face; a wee bit o’ comedy relief. 🙂
I’m alive…3 days without power. Didn’t Jesus do 3 days without power also? Maybe we have something in common?
Testicles, Swami, Testicles is what you have in common. Heh. 🙂
Yeah, but I put mine to use…..:)