Irene caused tremendous flood damage in VT.
Good preparation is all you can do in a situation like this. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Our community has two tree companies already staged in our ‘plantation’ and also, as with last year’s Matthew, first responders will be housed there. Although there’s been no official evacuation order, most in our community will have left by tomorrow. The majority in our community are not full-time residents and at this time of year, even fewer are there so that helps. Some staff and employees will stay.
Without knowing what path Irma will take, there’s really not much else to be done now. Sunday through early Tuesday will be when the worst happens if it take an east coast path.
@Consolation, which choice do you think the woman with the dogs is making? Is she choosing between taking her dogs with her when she evacuates and evacuating without the dogs? Or is she choosing between staying with the dogs and evacuating without the dogs?
If she is making the second choice, she’s making a rational choice. I realize people love their pets, but most people do not want to sacrifice their lives for their pets, and that’s what she’d be doing.
She could take the dogs to higher ground with her. They were walking. Worst case scenario, she could get up her roof with her dogs and someone would come along and save them.
She became responsibly for them when they became hers. It is her responsibility to take them into account and make plans accordingly. She was quite clear about how they didn’t make any plans at all, not even for themselves or their physical possessions, and didn’t take any steps to save anything. She’s a twit, at best. IMHO.
In the worst case she’d get up on the roof with her dogs and no one would save her.
In any case, forcing first responders to go to her and leave someone else who was unable to evacuate unrescued, because she wouldn’t abandon her dogs, is in my opinion worse than leaving the dogs. Dogs are not people. She shouldn’t force first responders to rescue her dog when they should be rescuing people. She shouldn’t create more problems for first responders. She has an obligation to her dogs, but a bigger obligation to the person she would keep from being rescued because rescuers were rescuing her.
We can be mad at her for being feckless, and not keeping faith with her dogs, and still say she is right at this point to leave them. She should have planned better. But now here she is, and now she has to make the right choice in the bad circumstances she brought on herself.
Just viewed some photos of St. John that a relative shared. Not one leaf left on one tree. Just brown branches. So strange looking. Anything constructed of wood did not fair well at all - major damage to piles of sticks. Concrete/stone construction looks pretty good. Not much flooding. Boats fared poorly as to be expected including the large ferries. Daytime curfew on the island today.
FYI- State of SC is under state of emergency since yesterday. All Colleges in the Charleston area have reported evacuations starting tomorrow. The issue with traffic and supply shortages is people are not following the recommendations regarding directions for evacuation and planning , and taxing a stressed system .
South Carolina’s governor will issue a mandatory evacuation order for 10 a.m. Saturday. All lanes for 26 will be headed to Columbia.
Look at I-75 traffic on Google Maps! It’s a red line almost all the way from FLL to ATL. If I lived in S FL I’d just travel to Tampa.It’ll be fine there. Of course, I’m sure many other people have thought of that and all the hotels are full.
Depending on where the hurricane hits in Florida, Tampa may not be as safe as you think @droppedit . Al Roker yesterday said with the size of this storm , it’s wider that the state of Florida and both coasts can be affected .
The peninsula is 100+ miles wide. That gives you plenty of “friction” to kill the wind coming in off the Atlantic when the storm is to your south. By the time it gets to the north, it’ll be either well east or significantly weaker.
What seems odd is that a pilot at my company said he was headed down to southern Florida to pick up a bunch of people in a King Air 200, and take them back to Virginia. For free. And everybody cancelled, said they are staying, hunkered down. Who turns down a free flight like that to stay for a hurricane?
Roommate used to live in Clearwater. Many of his friends are getting out. No need to risk their lives.
The storm is over 200 miles wide , it’s larger than the state of SC per Al Roker.
That is nuts, @busdriver11 ! The latest prediction just came in and is now headed for us with the worst right when we are supposed to fly out. I will hope/assume the predictions change again in the next 2 or 3 days. And it will go back to the east!
Yeah seriously @busdriver11!
Hoping this doesn’t head to SC @carolinamom2boys.
UF first home game is canceled. Totally understand, and many were upset that they waited this long to do it, but it hurts Gainesville to lose a home game. Same thing last year.
European model has the storm going more to the west coast and American model has it going to the east coast. The European model was right about Sandy.
Supposed to be vacationing/house hunting on Hilton Head in 3 weeks…this makes me nervous about relocating there.
Latest model runs have converged on Miami. Irma’s eye makes landfall at Key Largo between 2-10am Sunday morning (timing varies quite a bit but the tracks are similar) and moves north over western Miami. It runs the length of the state and up into GA.
What’s bad about this track is that it places Miami southward in the NE quadrant of the storm, where the highest winds and strongest surge are located.
@rockvillemom I am anxious for husband to retire in a few years so we can at least have the option to get out of coastal Virginia . He does not seem as anxious to retire elsewhere as I am so that could get interesting! Even here, we have had an escalation in flooding events in the last few years and our almost 100 year old home has come close already to having water come into the first floor more than once,. Sandy, Matthew, etc. Sea level keeps changing, storms keep escalating, flood zones keep changing , and flood insurance rates continue to rise. I feel anxious during hurricane season. I can’t imagine being elderly and having to evacuate.
No area is immune from disaster though of one sort or the other. I’m just ready for a change after dealing with threats of more storms in the last few years. Florida and South Carolina have even more so they are not on my retirement list. Our hometown of Pittsburgh is a possibility but I’d have to get used to snow and cold again! Good luck with the decision.