Posted on 05/18/2016 6:47:05 PM PDT by nickcarraway
I was living in Stuart, FL when Frances and Jean hit 17 days apart. 42 days without electric. The debris from blown down trees had just been cleared when the second storm hit. I’ve been through six hurricanes, but when Jean came through that was the first time I understood what the old timers call “the train”...sounded just like a locomotive all night long. Went out the next morning, and there was a single grapefruit left on the tree. Ate it.
I slept on the back porch for a month and a half because it was the coolest place in the house. Charged the cell phone off the car cigarette lighter. At night the blue crabs would come up out of the Indian River and have a steel cage death match on the dock. I’d wake up with the sunrise and there would be all these torn off crab claws scattered all over the place. Or, as I called it...dinner.
Worst part of it? Fox News sent Geraldo. An entire stable of attractive female reporters...and we got Geraldo? I lost all respect for Fox News right then and there.
People who cant predict rain from one day to the next have the nerve to predict weather that doesn’t yet exist! Then when it does they bring out the “hurricanes are UN predictable” and “weather isn’t an exact science” excuses. Why not just wait and see what happens instead of playing Karnak? Do they want people evacuating NOW? If not predictions are pointless displays of ego. Their credibility is nil. They are a joke. Gulf Coast people know more about weather than computer Karnaks.
I have not watched that in a long time, this may be the weekend!
Stay safe FReeper!
I wasn’t in Florida 10 years ago. I am now and hope to keep the streak going. The only good news is 7 houses on my cul de sac share our lines with the fire department. I guess that means we get electric pretty quick. 10 years ago I heard all the neighbors without power went to the 7 homes with power. I’m cool with that. Might be fun. But would rather skip it.
Remember all the additional hurricanes we were supposed t9 have because of globull warming?
I’ve got a generator here and so do most of my neighbors. I could run the fridge and two window units until I run out of gas.
But I can’t really stock enough fresh non ethanol gas to make a long haul situation. Gas eventually goes bad even with stabilizer in it, and then it becomes a very expensive pain to keep it all rotated and fresh.
So basically the generator is for the category 1 or 2 scenario, otherwise I’m not going to be here and hoping no one steals my generator.
I evacuated New Orleans for Katrina on the Saturday before the Monday that it hit Mississippi, and I’m real glad I did and took my dogs with me, because I was not able to go home for a long time.
If my dogs had been at home... I woulda had to swim to them past looters, gangs, police and all sorts of other crazy sh*t.
My son stayed when Ike hit - rest of us went to the Hill Country for a mini-vacation. He said he wouldn’t ever stay again and will never ever forget the sound of the unrelenting wind. My dil went through one when she was in grade school - just the mention of a possible hurricane and she’s out of here.
Don’t know about Florida but if we have another one anywhere near Houston the evacuation issue is going to be an utter disaster. Highway system couldn’t handle all the people leaving during Ike. Because of population growth as well as the number of “entitlement” folks, it’s going to be even worse.
Two things I see about you. One is you are prepared and two you have an ability to get out of dodge. I would imagine some stayed because they didn’t think itd be as bad. Yieks! I am glad you were a lot to get the dogs and yourself to safety. I hope to discuss more in the coming months. I’ve never lived through a major hurricane.
“Perhaps...it may end this season...or Perhaps not.”
Bwahahahaha. Just what I was going to post.
Maybe another year or five or ten or more.
Well, since they are predicting an increase in hurricanes this season, it6 looks like you guys dodged the bullet again.
Seems like every time they predict something, the opposite happens.
Just can’t trust those meteorologists, can you?
;)
.... Highway system couldn’t handle all the people leaving during Ike...
There is usually a 4 day warning of a possible Hurricane strike.
If you don’t leave on the first day, you may not get out by the second or third day.
I would rather leave at first notice than sit through Hurricane Andrew type winds. The wind wasn’t just howling. It was screaming like a pack of Banshees. Blood curdling. Really Frightening. Almost indescribable sounds. And gen there were the sounds of the super gusts.
...But I can’t really stock enough fresh non ethanol gas to make a long haul situation. Gas eventually goes bad even with stabilizer in it....
Use a double amount of stabil. Have kept gas usable in gas cans for emergency storqge and for the lawn tractor for as long as six years doing that. Wrote the fill dates on the cans with a sharpie. Also, non ethanol is sold in Florida for outboards.
Oh yeah, I can get the non ethanol gas without any problem, it’s just trying to store 15 five gallon containers of it for long periods of time that I want to avoid.
The stuff eventually gets used in my lawnmowers and in running the generator every two weeks, but as soon as mowing season stops, then the gas starts to stagnate over the winter, and I get worried about it going bad.
I do keep the recommended amount of stabilizer in it, but I have not thought about doubling amounts of it.
Usually around July or so I start to keep any extra supply of gas on hand in case of a storm emergency, and if something pops up that looks like it could be incoming, I will go to the station early on and load up more gas.
We left when Rita threatened Houston. Because we had already been through the after affects of Katrina, everyone decided to evacuate all at once even though there was a slim chance of us having anything more than some rain. Most people set out without a tankful of gas, cash or extra food. Took us 20 hours to go slightly less than 180 miles to our destination. The cat who was traveling with me in my car was not happy.
Then when Ike hit, nobody believed the weather reports and didn’t leave. Doubt if the people in Galveston who stayed will ever do that again.
As far as I’m concerned, there is no reason to stay. It will be here when I get back or it won’t be. That’s why we pay exorbitant insurance premiums for mandatory wind coverage.
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