Posted on 08/14/2004 2:02:37 PM PDT by My Favorite Headache
It is with a heavy heart that I write this. I have no idea what is wrong with people today in this society and this country. My example I am going to use is a really really sad one.
I was in Plant City as of Thursday night which for those who do not know is just north east of Tampa/St.Pete. I went down there to help a friend of mine who owns a house who happens to be a single mother of a 2 yr old girl. She needed help boarding up her house and sandbags etc.
All finished by 2 am there and I decided I was going to go over to a portion of Tampa called locally "New Tampa", where another friend of mine was readying her home up with her brothers. It was only 30 mins away from Plant City and definitely in the "expected"path of Charley.
I wound up falling asleep there around 4 am and woke up around 6:30 am to see that everything was still a go and a green light for Tampa. We had a few more things to move outside and the sandbags because it is a low lying area that floods from regular storms.
We went out to grab something to eat at a local Wendy's where the wait in the drive thru was about 45 mins long considering everything local had closed already by 11 am. When we got back to the house we were watching storm coverage and then about 20 mins later noticed the shift in the storm. We saw that the storm itself was more than likely going to move into the Cape Coral area.
I decided it was time for me to make my decision and it was quick. 10 seconds. I got into my car and drove over to my friends home in Lakeland. Unfortunately by the time I got over there he had hauled it over to a friends house in Arcadia.
I knew I was racing against time on I-4 and that Charley was breathing down my neck. But was more than confident I would make it back to Melbourne in time before Charlie hit Central Florida...and I did.
With about 60 mph winds everything was ok here and we even managed to keep power the entire time. So we were spared and were lucky...our friends 30 miles to the west of us couldn't say the same.
So all of my phone calls were put into friends in Naples where I used to live up til March of this year,Fort Myers,Cape Coral,and Bonita Springs. All had no power and were trying to save cell batteries but were alive. But here is where the BARF ALERT comes in.
3 of them managed to in the span of 60 seconds say "this is Jeb Bush's storm...he really screwed this one up","your boy Jeb is going to have a lot of explaining to do with this one","I am sure Jeb and George will come play the healer for their own injuries they caused."
I was sicken to my stomach. Just not that these people were my friends and usually very educated and well spoken...BUT THEY MEANT IT!
I said listen...this storm was all over the news for a week. The hurricane warning had been issued within 36 hrs...evacuation orders were given...this is mother nature...science..you can't predict this kind of thing and we all saw it with our own eyes..the storm turned right...not Jeb Bush forcing it to the coast.
Every single person bought into the entire "the Bush's never know what to do when something is going on ala the morning of 9-11",obviously a Michael Moore style of brainwashing that people have sickingly adopted from his film.
If it was not bad enough to hear it was when I turned on local talk radio and listened to my fellow Floridians bash the national hurricane center,the national weather service,jeb bush,and the media for causing such huge errors in the state and ignoring other possible tracks. That Jeb Bush spoke with arrogance and cockiness that the storm was definitely going to hit Tampa.
Last I checked the NHC saved millions of lives by posting updates every 3 hrs...the national weather service saved millions of lives by posting tornado warnings and flood watches and warnings,and Jeb Bush was up for 3 straight days and still is down south trying to do whatever a HUMAN BEING can do.
The nerve of a reporter to ask him "you are down here and the cameras are here...but do you really mean it when you say you are going to make sure people get help? Do you mean it?"
Or CNN saying "well the president's trip with his brother will be more about not wanting to lose Florida and the 27 electoral votes than showing compassion", I have absolutely had it with this kind of crap. I really pray for humanity to come along one day and to stop blaming everyone else for their problems and for things out of all of our control...like category 4 hurricanes.
Unload the ones that don't resemble Baywatch babes.
"....You said it yourself, at the last minute the storm changed course.
Now how can NOAA or any other weather Forecaster predict that?? That is akin to trying to predict tomorrow's weather or global warming.
You can have all of the most sophisticated weather models,"
Captain, Thursday afternoon my wife was watching the forecast on TV. She commented that the hurricane was going to be pushed to the right by the cold front that, at that time was in the panhandle. Later Thursday evening, a TV weather person had just finished their forecast on the late news when the anchor person asked for a replay of the video of the storm movement. The anchor's question was "the hurricane looks like it was turning to the east". The response was it is common for the strom to 'jog'. At that time it had just passed over Cuba. On to Friday. All day Friday, we were told by the media that ALL FOUR models from the National Hurricane Center had the storm sitting in Tampa Bay at 8:00PM. If YOU were a local TV weather person, would you perdict anything other then what NOAA was telling you was going 'for sure' to happen?? Well at 8 PM in the Tampa/St. Pete area we had 5 to 10 MPH winds and a trace of rain; while some of our 'brothers and sisters' in central Florida and east coast Florida lay dead; and many more were homeless. If my wife (a nurse) can see on Thursday that it would turn, and a TV anchor person can detect a turn from a space video, then what excuse does NOAA and the National Hurricane Center's highly educated scientists have for such a forecasting blunder? I don't blame ANY politician. I blame specifically the staff and management of NOAA for shoddy workmanship; and they should be called on the 'carpet' for it!
Maybe your right.
Perhaps an investigation is needed but my main premise is still that any storm, hurricane, etc. can do things that make any predictions an educated guess at best.
Some guy who was in charge of disaster readiness for the affected areas was saying that there will be an investigation as to why people either did not get the warnings or did not evacuate.
You know amazes me?
Why didn't the reporter ask "Ma'am, who exactly lied to you?"
Maybe the reporter didn't want to kick a person when they were down but some of these people need to understand exactly how unpredictable weather is.
The only thing that I can predict with certainty right now is that Kerry will be in Florida within a couple of days, promising to spend billions to revamp the "antiquated" NOAA. I wonder how many telemarketers the dems used to convince these people that this was the Bush family's fault.
Don't worry. John Kerry will show up and ask his wife to build new houses for everybody. And then he will stretch out his hand, still the waters, walk across Tampa bay and go to Punta Gorda and raise the dead.
May I ask how long you have lived on the coast? Last year we had a hurricane that was projected to hit Brownsville Texas. We were ready. It turned late and headed towards Houston and they were ready. It's just a fact of life here. We depend on the weather guys to keep track but we know these storms hardly ever go in exactly as predicted. That's why there is a projected path. As the storm gets closer the path moves accordingly. If you are in the % you just can't let your guard down. I was just talking with someone on another thread where around 9000 people died in the 1900 storm. They did not even have a warning a hurricane out there. I'm grateful that I live during a time when we have NOAA. JMO
Party of death? Probably. Otherwise, Lawton Chiles would have done the right thing after Andrew and outlawed mobile homes in the state of Florida. Anyone who lives in Florida and resides in a mobile home ought to have their head examined.
AT 11 AM EDT...1500Z...THE CENTER OF HURRICANE CHARLEY WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 25.2 NORTH...LONGITUDE 82.8 WEST OR ABOUT 145 MILES SOUTH OF SARASOTA FLORIDA.CHARLEY IS MOVING TOWARD THE NORTH NEAR 18 MPH AND A TURN TOWARD THE NORTH-NORTHEAST WITH AN INCREASE IN FORWARD SPEED IS EXPECTED TODAY.
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 110 MPH...175 KM/HR...WITH HIGHER GUSTS. SOME STRENGTHENING IS POSSIBLE PRIOR TO LANDFALL ON THE FLORIDA WEST COAST THIS AFTERNOON OR EVENING.
Here's the 1:00 PM advisory:
AT 1 PM EDT...1700Z...THE CENTER OF HURRICANE CHARLEY WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 25.7 NORTH...LONGITUDE 82.5 WEST OR ABOUT 70 MILES SOUTH-SOUTHWEST OF FORT MYERS FLORIDA.CHARLEY IS NOW MOVING TOWARD THE NORTH-NORTHEAST NEAR 20 MPH AND THIS MOTION IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE TODAY WITH AN INCREASE IN FORWARD SPEED. ON THIS TRACK...THE CENTER OF THE HURRICANE SHOULD REACH THE COAST IN THE VICINITY OF CHARLOTTE HARBOR LATER THIS AFTERNOON.
RECENT REPORTS FROM A RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT INDICATE THAT THE MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS HAVE INCREASED TO NEAR 125 MPH...WITH HIGHER GUSTS...CATEGORY THREE ON THE SAFFIR/SIMPSON HURRICANE SCALE. THESE STRONGEST WINDS ARE CONFINED TO A SMALL AREA WITHIN A FEW MILES FROM CHARLEYS CENTER.
Here's a 2:00 PM advisory:
REPEATING THE 2 PM EDT POSITION...26.0 N... 82.4 W. MOVEMENT TOWARD...NORTH-NORTHEAST NEAR 20 MPH. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...145 MPH. MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE... 954 MB.
Ask them which Bush brother stopped them from paying attention to the advisories, and tied them so they couldn't get out of the path of the storm?
The national weather service saw the change at 1:00 PM, and put out an advisory, it went mostly ignored.
It wouldnt' work. The DemoRats would rig the test or cheat in some way. They are All crooked enough that somehow, someway they would stop the Republicans from voting. If it could be done in a fair and honest way it would be an excellent idea.
Exactly.
Considering that Punta Gorda is smack dab in between Ft. Myers and Venice, I'd say that the NWC called it right OVER TWENTY FOUR HOURS BEFORE LANDFALL.
Maybe two...
Location is accurate, but your dates are off by 24 hours. The storm hit on Friday afternoon not Saturday.
Were they not in the % path though?
***"we had no idea a storm was coming here..we were told Tampa and north so we went about our business...they lied to us and we lost everything***
People who say this have no business living in the Gulf Coast Region. The smart ones know a hurricane will change course at the drop of a hat. Wish I could send her Hurricane Juan's tracking course of several years ago.
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