[rstrahan]

Local stations now saying it could hit West Palm Beach up to Canaveral, but will at least up the coast, 140 mph winds.

[grania]

As far back as the 1980s, when the sandbar that Cocoa Beach and Cape Canaveral (the town) were being overbuilt, there was an overconfidence that the area would never get "the big one" because of underwater geography that pushes storms out to sea. There are now multi-story residential buildings just a few feet back from the high tide line.

My parents lived there. Dad would quip that the "giant sandbar" couldn't be evacuated because of the large population and the small number of bridges. I can't begin to imagine the damage if a big one hits the coastline from Melbourne to Cape Canaveral.