Thursday, November 10, 2022

Nicole, don't be an A-Hole....

She has a big wind field, but is moving fast and for Tampa Bay, should just be a wind and rain event through mid-day today and then, like Ian, cool weather comes in behind.

For most, it's just another work day with a fair amount of traffic on the roads while schools are closed and probably most events this morning postponed or delayed.



Monday, October 03, 2022

Ian Wrap Up

Well once again the Tampa Bay area avoided the worst of a Hurricane.  We are sorry for those in Southwest Florida (Ft. Meyers area) who took the brunt of Ian.

The Tampa Bay area had alot of tree debris and minor damages but NOTHING compared to down South.

Our community had the tree debris picked up by the next day and did another sweep for those who needed more than 24 hours to clean up their properties.  There are still some debris piles more towards the eastern Tampa side of the bay.

Lot's of talk and thank yous to the Tocobaga Tribe:  

For centuries beginning in 900, the Tocobaga tribe inhabited the coastline of Tampa Bay, surviving on a diet consistingmostly of fish and shellfish.  The tribe began dying off due to war and disease brought by a Spanish explorer and his men in the 16th century.  Althought the timeline is somewhat unclear, the tribe had been completely wiped out some time before 1800.

These are the storm tracks since just 1960.  The last major hurricane to directly hit Tampa Bay was in 1921.  Large burial mounds remaining from the Tocobaga civilzation are still present today with the oldest one about a mile from where we live overlooking Old Tampa Bay in the area known as "Safety Harbor".  

Many people think the mounds could be providing supernatureal protection from hurricanes.

Of course, some think the MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa has some type of radar, sonar, lidor device that keeps the storms away since they are the base for Central and Southern Command.




Some interesting notes:

The similar paths of Charlie in 2004 and Ian in 2022:



Charlie's eye fit well inside Ian's:





Everone has to shelter in place:



We did wait in line for sandbags:





Tuesday, September 27, 2022

Ian's Track Shifts Southeast!


The 11pm Tuesday (much) updated track has Tampa Bay mostly out of the cone & we will miss the worst of Ian.

24 hours ago our county was ground zero.

Tonight our county is NOT even in the cone. But still a large rain & wind event for us Wednesday into Thursday.

As you can see, others in the state are not quite as lucky….


The Real Deal - Facing Ian



For those friends elsewhere asking or wondering about how & what we’re doing:

Our house is in the highest "evacuation zone" that is not being asked to leave so we will follow the "run from the water and hide from the wind" plan that we've had in place for the past 30+ years and hunker down at home with our son & daughter-in-law.  And 2 dogs.  When Irma came through in 2017 we spent the night in our windowless 50 square foot interior "safe room" where the biggest issue was the little dog peeing on one of the mattresses overnight.

A lot of people that live closer to the water and are in the lower topography are facing mandatory evacuations due to the threat of the storm surge. We should not face that issue. We've taken all the precautions we can and while we don't have hurricane windows or a generator, we have lots of ice and a swimming pool.  Power outage is the only sure thing we know we will face.  How long is the question!  For Irma it was about 30 hours.

The past 7 years, our backup power plan had been our motorhomes.  They had generators, water, refrigeration and most importantly, AIR CONDITIONING.  Since we sold our RV in March, we do not have that option this time.  As a matter of fact, for Irma, after about 24 hours of no power or A/C, I went & retreived our motorhome from it's safe enclosed storage facility and drove it back to the house to live in until the power was restored.  Literally, just as I was backing it into the driveway, the power came back on!

Other than power & no A/C, our biggest threat is wind and rain.  Hopefully the former will just create alot of debris to clean up and our property tends not to back up with water flow.  However, once the power goes out, we won't be able to lower the pool water, so that creates an issue.  We have one low entry into the house from the pool but we've used those sandbags you may have seen me pickup Sunday.

This area will get hit.  This is the real deal.

Thank you for asking.  We'll try to update as the week goes on or until the power goes out......

Wednesday, August 24, 2022

Hurricane Andrew struck 30 years ago today


30 years ago Hurricane Andrew came ashore in South Florida.  

You can read all about here

We were living in Charlotte at the time which was recovering from Hugo.  A year later we moved back to Southwestern Florida and watched across the state for the next 10 years (and more) as Homestead recovered.

We were fortunate to miss both.

My biggest takeway is not to be fooled by a quiet season.  As the first named storm of the season, it was late August before Andrew hit.  And while 1992 was a below average season, there were 7 named storms, 4 hurricanes and, the catastrophic Andrew

And, so many new requirements for future storm preparedness became Florida law in the aftermath.

Today, we have been very quiet but things are heating up.....