AFD - Hurricanes

[sharon sanders]

http://afludiary.blogspot.com/2008_08_01_archive.html






Saturday, August 16, 2008

Watches? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Watches!


# 2235


Coastal Watches/Warnings and 5-Day Track Forecast Cone




























As of 5am, on this 16th day of August 2008, this is the anticipated 5-day track of what is forecast to become Hurricane Fay.





Tropical Storm or Hurricane watches won't be posted for Florida until Sunday at the earliest, but many Floridians are already taking notice.




For now, Fay is just a tropical storm, and she has several land masses to traverse before hitting the warm regenerative waters of the Florida Straits. Quite frankly, a lot can happen to this storm and its track over the next few days.

Those that haven't already will soon be buying up flashlights, radios, plywood, canned goods and sterno. There will be no mad scramble in this household, of course, as we stay prepared year-round.
​

All of this is subject to change, and the `forecast cone' is nearly 300 miles wide when the storm is forecast to reach my latitude, so it may very well miss my little abode by a considerable distance.





As luck would have it, on Monday my daughter (who's been camped out on my living room sofa for a week) will be moving into a new apartment in St. Petersburg. She has just moved down from Indiana, and at the age of 31, this will be her first tropical `experience'.




Fay, as you can see, is expected on Tuesday.




I'm loading her up with emergency LED lanterns, canned goods, and other supplies to go along with the crank operated short-wave radio I gave her last year.




The next couple of days, as you might imagine, will be a little busy around here.




While I still have hopes that this storm will trek further west, and miss the west coast of Florida completely, we here are long overdue for a hurricane. The good news is, that after coming across Cuba, Fay is unlikely to have enough time to generate into a really powerful storm.




If this website should temporarily cease having updates next week due to Hurricane related power or Internet problems, I'll try to get word to SophiaZoe.



For now, I'm not really expecting much of a storm. But of course, that could change.



Posted by FLA_MEDIC at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://afludiary.blogspot.com/2008/08/watches-we-don-need-no-stinkin-watches.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2008-08-16T07:06:00-04:00">7:06 AM</abbr>

 

[sharon sanders]

Re: AFD - Hurricane Fay

Re: AFD - Hurricane Fay

Where She Goes, Nobody Knows




# 2238





With Tropical Storm Fay over Cuba now, the guessing as to where she will eventually end up continues.




As you can see from the `spaghetti models' shown below, the various computers haven't pinpointed a Florida landfall yet, even with as little as 24 hours to go.























The good news is, Fay isn't expected to become a Major Hurricane (ie. Cat 3 or better). She shouldn't have enough time over water to generate that kind of intensity.




The further north she travels without going ashore, however, the more potential she will have to strengthen. A Category 1 or 2 storm is certainly possible.















Even a tropical storm can cause significant damage, and these storms have been known to spin off tornadoes.



So no one takes them lightly.

Posted by FLA_MEDIC at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://afludiary.blogspot.com/2008/08/where-she-goes-nobody-knows.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2008-08-18T07:55:00-04:00">7:55 AM</abbr>

 

[sharon sanders]

Re: AFD - Hurricane Fay

Re: AFD - Hurricane Fay

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

A Fay Accompli




# 2242






When tropical storm Fay came ashore nearly 15 hours ago south of Naples, she was ragged looking at best, and had 60 MPH winds.



By tropical storm standards, she was less than impressive.

Normally, storms such as this quickly fall apart once on shore. Instead, Fay has actually pulled herself together and intensified over land, something which isn't supposed to happen.



She now has winds of 65 MPH, and a very impressive looking eye.



























This remarkable piece of prestidigitation is described in the following NHC advisory issued at 5pm today.

</pre>
TROPICAL STORM FAY DISCUSSION NUMBER 17
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
AL062008
500 PM EDT TUE AUG 19 2008
FAY DID NOT WEAKEN OVER LAND AS ANTICIPATED AND IN FACT...IT IS STRONGER THAN IT HAS EVER BEEN SO FAR. INITIAL INTENSITY IS CONSERVATIVELY SET AT 55 KNOTS.
THIS IS BASED ON SATELLITE...RADAR AND CONFIRMED BY SURFACE OBSERVATIONS. THIS HAS PROMPTED A

SIGNIFICANT CHANGE IN THE INTENSITY FORECAST. GIVEN THAT FAY HAS KEPT SUCH A WELL-DEFINED SIGNATURE ON RADAR AND ON SATELLITE...THE CHANCES THAT THE CYCLONE BECOMES A HURRICANE AS IT MOVES OVER THE GULF STREAM EAST OF FLORIDA HAVE INCREASED.

​

Fay is now forecast to briefly emerge over the warm gulf stream, possibly pick up steam, then cross back into Florida on Thursday (between St. Augustine and Jacksonville).



















So far, all I've seen have out of this storm have been some mild gusty winds and overcast skies (not that I'm complaining!).





But the final chapter of this most persistent storm has yet to be written.



Stay tuned.


UPDATE: 0800 hrs EDT 8/20

T.S. Fay finally weakened overnight before slipping off the East coast of Florida near Melbourne and back into the Atlantic.

Her top winds have dropped to around 40MPH.

She is drifting north, and right now is not expected to regain Hurricane strength before turning back into the Florida coast.


















Posted by FLA_MEDIC at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://afludiary.blogspot.com/2008/08/fay-accompli.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2008-08-19T20:16:00-04:00">8:16 PM</abbr>

 

[sharon sanders]

Re: AFD - Hurricane Fay

Re: AFD - Hurricane Fay

Imagine If The Next Time Disaster Struck . ..






# 2311







On last Saturday afternoon, scant hours after Hurricane Ike struck the Texas gulf coast, residents were queuing up outside of Home Depot stores desperately hoping to get inside to buy batteries and generators.




Some were lucky enough to find flashlight batteries, but generators were sold out.




Many residents, twenty-four hours after the storm, were said to be without food or water. The angry mayor of Houston vowed to hold FEMA accountable.




FEMA, which is trying to rehabilitate its image after Katrina, once again found themselves the focus of a barrage of criticism when - 36 hours post-Ike - distribution PODS had not yet opened in Houston.




By Monday morning, 48 hours after the storm, PODs (Points of Distribution) were beginning to open in some areas, and some food distribution had begun.




Residents, however, were forced to stand in long lines and sometime wait hours. Many would return to homes without electricity, and would spend another night in the dark.

​

Residents carry boxes filled with Meals Ready to Eat (MRE) after picking them up from a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) point of distribution set up after Hurricane Ike knocked out power in Pasadena, Texas September 15, 2008. REUTERS/Jessica Rinaldi



​

It is a sad picture, and one that has been pretty much moved off the front page less than a week after the disaster, replaced by Wall Street worries and Presidential election news.





These people, particularly those displaced living in shelters - but almost everyone living in and around the Houston/Galveston/ Beaumont corridor - are living under miserable conditions right now.




My heart goes out to them. There but for the grace of the placement of a trough over the Midwest, go I. It could just as easily have been my section of the Gulf coast.




And next time, maybe it will be.

Now . . . imagine how much less stress and misery there would be right now in this region if . . . as has been strongly suggested by FEMA, the American Red Cross, and the Federal Government - every family had the recommended 2-weeks worth of food, water, and emergency supplies in their pantry.
​

Obviously, those who were displaced by the storm - forced to abandon their homes (and presumably their emergency supplies) - would have needed emergency relief within the first 24 hours of the storm.
​

But the rest of the population could easily have gone two or three days without clamoring for food and water. If they had prepared, they would already have had flashlights and lanterns, along with batteries for them. There would have been far less panic, far less misery and discomfort.





For the vast majority of people, there would have been no need to rush to the store before, or immediately after the storm.

Even if everyone had just provisioned for only 72-hours, that would have given relief agencies time to get their act in order, and supplies on the ground.
​

Ike came as no surprise.



















Six days prior to landfall, the NHC (National Hurricane Center) was warning that the Texas/Louisiana coast was a prime target. Hurricane warnings went up along the Texas coast a full 72-hours before Ike struck.





No one should have been caught by surprise.

Frankly, how anyone could live on the gulf coast and not have 72-hours worth of food and water is beyond me.
​

The next disaster may not announce itself days in advance. We may not have time to prepare, or even to evacuate.




It could be an earthquake, or a forest fire, a tornado, or a flood. It could even be a pandemic.




If you are prepared - really prepared - you could not only take care of yourself and your family, you could extend some help to your friends and neighbors as well.




Another disaster will come. Today, tomorrow . . .next week.






























But another disaster will happen.






We have a choice. We can choose to be victims, and accept our fate - or we can prepare, and be ready to meet the challenge of the next disaster.






Being prepared isn't rocket science. It doesn't even have to be expensive. A family of four could easily set up a 72-hour kit for the price of a couple of home-delivery pizzas.





Many agencies, of course, would like to see your family with 2-weeks or more of supplies. That can take a bit more doing.






To get you started, and to help guide you along the way, I can think of no better resource than GetPandemicReady.Org. I may be a little biased, as I made some modest contributions to this site.

Other resources I would recommend include:


FEMA http://www.fema.gov/index.shtm
READY.GOV http://www.ready.gov/
AMERICAN RED CROSS http://www.redcross.org/
HHS Flu Site http://www.pandemicflu.gov/

​

The choice is ours.



We can either elect to learn from history, or we can be condemned to repeat it.