I have lived in Florida for over 23 years now. My wife and I have been through several hurricanes.
We always buy most of our hurricane stuff in the beginning of June. We learned that even tho we are 50 miles inland you still have to be prepared.

We have also had a great number of people move to Florida since our last big hurricane and they may have come from a part of the country that does not get this kind of storm. Doing my normal shopping this week I have seen it.

As I type this I am getting ready to board up. Even tho most in my neighborhood do not my wife and I just want to be prepared.
We are starting to see some weather related to the storm now in south Florida.
They have changed the path and strength several times since last Thursday when they started to show the path it might go.

For those who are looking for a good weather page my wife and I follow Mikes Weather page. This is a link if you can't find it https://spaghettimodels.com/

Good luck,be safe and if we lose power I will see you on the other side of this storm.



Update 11-07-2022
Here we go again.
This one does not look nearly as bad as the last one however it looks like it will come ashore as a category one storm on the South East coast of Florida.
Everyone be safe.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: 71 TRUCK,

The straight facts here:
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

We are heading to Disney world on the 7th. This sounds exciting.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
The straight facts here:
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

Thanks for the info, it looks to be very helpful I had not seen this page before.

quote:

Originally posted by cheeze:
We are heading to Disney world on the 7th. This sounds exciting.

I don't know about exciting.

When I was an active firefighter New Jersey this kind of stuff was exciting in a strange way.
The old saying around the firehouse was "You don't want to miss the big one".

Unfortunately when a storm this big hit Florida there is always a large part of the population who are not ready. They may loose everything especially if they are in a shore community. If this thing comes in Tampa Bay they will see flooding like never before especially if it a slow moving storm.
We will see where it ends up.

Where are you staying when you come to Disney?

We're supposed to be on Vacation in Panama City next week. It's not supposed to be in the projections for the storm path, but I guess we'll see how that goes. We'll be bringing groceries with us, we've already heard the stores have been picked clean.

Not in the path at present. Hope you already have a place to stay. There are a lot of Floridians headed that way. Good idea to bring your groceries

When hurricane Irma hit back in 2017 it came ashore in south Florida. It came right up the state and chased people out.
This one looks like it is going to come ashore around the Tampa area, go across the state on a east, north east direction and end up in St Augustin/Jacksonville area. This is what they are saying/showing now but it could change at any minute.

We are staying at Disney for two days and then to coco beach for almost a week

I wish they’d say what’s likely to happen with the storm surge. Right now, they are saying the entire City of Punta Gorda could be under 12’ of water above the ground, not just above sea level.

I can’t fathom that. We’re looking at our stuff and trying to figure out what to save by taking it to my dad’s house. He has a second story. Even at 12' above sea level that would be the end of our house. We’re loading picture albums into Pelican rifle cases.

quote:

Originally posted by cheeze:
We are staying at Disney for two days and then to coco beach for almost a week

That sounds like fun. Hopefully most of the mess at Disney if any will be cleaned up by the time you get there.
Are you staying on Disney property and if so where? Disney announced they will be evacuating certain resorts because they are near water and they could possibly flood.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
I wish they’d say what’s likely to happen with the storm surge. Right now, they are saying the entire City of Punta Gorda could be under 12’ of water above the ground, not just above sea level.

I can’t fathom that. We’re looking at our stuff and trying to figure out what to save by taking it to my dad’s house. He has a second story. Even at 12' above sea level that would be the end of our house.

As far as the weather people, they have had this thing all over the place. I know back during Charlie in 2004 they were predicting it to come into Tampa bay. They were predicting a huge storm surge. It ended up coming ashore around Punta Gourda. It saved Tampa but it did a lot of damage in your area.

I don't know what to say. I can't imagine 12'of water covering an entire city.
The things I would concentrate on would be important papers, computers and as much stuff that can't be replaced, I would not even know where to start if it were me.

Luckily for my wife and I we live on the Ridge in the central part of the state just south west of Disney right off I4. We are also at the top of our development.

We called several of our friends who either live in the Green Swamp or a pre manufactured home and told them to come to our house if needed.

Good luck and be safe.

quote:

I wish they’d say what’s likely to happen with the storm surge. Right now, they are saying the entire City of Punta Gorda could be under 12’ of water above the ground, not just above sea level.

I can’t fathom that. We’re looking at our stuff and trying to figure out what to save by taking it to my dad’s house. He has a second story. Even at 12' above sea level that would be the end of our house

^^^^^^^^^^^^
It is complicated because it is the angle at which the storm comes in, the wind speed and the topography. The MS. coast had 28 feet of storm surge which was unprecedented. Hancock county where the storm had surge go up the rivers to 12 miles inland. Even though Katrina was a Cat 5, it hit as Cat 3 with a Cat 5 storm surge. When these large storm lose wind speed they grow in size. Houses that stood on the beach for hundreds of years were gone. You have to remember that there are WAVES on top of the surge as well.

Forgot to mention. Look at your evacuation zones. That should provide some help. My experience is that they go around with a loudspeaker and tell you to evacuate.

quote:

Originally posted by 71 TRUCK:

quote:

Originally posted by cheeze:
We are staying at Disney for two days and then to coco beach for almost a week

That sounds like fun. Hopefully most of the mess at Disney if any will be cleaned up by the time you get there.
Are you staying on Disney property and if so where? Disney announced they will be evacuating certain resorts because they are near water and they could possibly flood.

Thanks yeah we are staying at the Disney property at the Caribbean resort. I’m sure it’ll be fine by the time we get there. Or it’ll just ad to the authenticity of the trip and maybe it’ll be less crowded!

RnR'd the generator, wouldn't start, no spark, cleaned carb, new gas, new plug, pulled oil sensor wire which can kill off the spark and still,no joy...

Spoke with a local lawn repair shop, said to pull a white wire off the on/off switch it's part of the oil sensor cut off circuit, and vo-la we have generator!

Running up to Daytona area to get my dad and bring him here since he doesn't have a generator, so we'll be good, plenty of gas on hand, food, etc.

Will pick up some cigars on the way back...

I have co-workers in Orlando and friends in Venice. They're riding it out as best they can.

My family in Canada is recovering from Hurricane Fiona which was devastating last weekend

Have no fear. Sen. Amy Klobuchar says that if you vote dem. this could be the last hurricane to hit the US.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/...hy-weve-got-win-this

Jim

Folks, as the member here who's lived in Central Florida for almost 60 years and dealt with many, many storms ($50k in damage from Charlie), please, turn off your TV's and go to the NOAA website. This is where your common sense should drive your decision making, and TV news will only cloud that effort. The rabid attention whores (i.e. weathermen) on TV are doing the same thing they always do, driving tensions and fear in the sheep to stratospheric levels. "Florida is going to be decimated by a CAT 17 hurricane with one thousand foot storm surge. If you do no evacuate there is a 118% chance you will be killed". They are the specific reason many people end up being unprepared for such a storm because of "Crying Wolf" syndrome.

This is a big storm that's going to drop a lot of water on the state. If you own beach front property or are in an area prone to flooding, you're likely going to have issues to deal with. At current, and unless things change markedly (which they always can with one of these storms) we in Central Florida are going to spend a day or two inside until it passes over. I wish everyone well and please, crack a beer or dish up some single malt, and relax a bit until there is good reason not to.