Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Everybody saw this coming.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

In my day, never was longer.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

This really is a full service blog.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

When I was faster i was always behind.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

You are here: Home / Climate Change / How about that weather? / Hurricane Prep (Open Thread)

Hurricane Prep (Open Thread)

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Here’s the 11 AM ET NHC update on Hurricane Ian’s track:

Hurricane Prep (Open Thread)

Yesterday the track nudged a bit west, which was an encouraging sign for people in our location, but starting last night it tracked east again, which isn’t. It may shift again — who knows.

We’re far enough inland to be safe from a storm surge, and a dry summer kept the river’s level relatively low, so we’re hopeful it won’t reach flood stage as long as we don’t get more than a foot of rainfall. Our already crappy dirt road might become impassable, but we have contingency plans for that too.

In short, we’re as prepared as we can be and hoping for the best. Stay safe, Gulf Coast people!

Open thread.

 

Reader Interactions

139Comments

  2. 2.

    The Moar You Know

    I want it to hit some places it isn’t slated to go.  I also wish for a Sharpie and small hands.

  6. 6.

    Doc Sardonic

    Getting a very weird feeling this one may pull a Charlie. UKMET has been a fairly good model over the years and from the get go it has had Ian coming in at Port Charlotte and rolling up and going out between New Smyrna Beach and St. Augustine.

  8. 8.

    phdesmond

    i thought only the white sharpie part was added by Trump, so as to include Alabama.

    wishing you well, BC, as you weather the storm.

  16. 16.

    Anonymous At Work

    Dry river bed/banks can also flash.  Take care and always remember “There’s no silver medal for cannibalism.”

  17. 17.

    narya

    Checked the pharmacy site on a whim this morning, and a 10 am booster appointment showed up! I snagged it and hustled on over. I will continue to mask in indoor settings regardless, but it will ease my mind a little.

    For all of you in the storm’s path, here’s hoping you’re safe!

  19. 19.

    Shalimar

    I am prepared to either evacuate or survive for a week or more without power, whichever may happen, but currently i am just outside the western edge of the cone.

    If I believed in God, I would speculate that He or She is sending this directly at DeSantis and our corrupt state legislature.

  24. 24.

    Betty Cracker

    @Doc Sardonic: I’ve wondered about that too, and for the record, I was right about Charley turning. It was supposed to roll into Tampa Bay where we were living at the time but instead turned east well south of the bay and rolled over the inland area my husband was trying to talk me into evacuating too. (And no, he will never, ever live that down!)

  26. 26.

    Gvg

    @rikyrah: To be fair I think I read several sources reporting at the time he had taken documents he shouldn’t. I don’t recall the details now, but I was totally not surprised by the news. I thought it was pretty clear almost from the start to anyone paying attention.

    Of course, I expected something like this from the start with this guy…only not this stupid. I thought they would sell and give away the whole time, not just keep them carelessly where anyone else could get a look without paying or snitch on the.

    Maggie is not that smart. I wouldn’t bother to read her anyway because she misses the point or significance of almost everything that happens right in front of her. She has to wait for other reporters and analysts to tell her what it means, then pretend she was holding back to write a book IMO.

    Not that makes her any good.

  29. 29.

    Steeplejack

    @Doc Sardonic:

    I have an 84-year-old friend who recently moved to Naples, FL. I have been concerned about her, but if Ian comes ashore around Port Charlotte that’s about 70 miles north of her. I’m sure she’ll still get wind and rain, but not a direct hit.

  30. 30.

    trollhattan

    @OzarkHillbilly: Sounds like a lot then I ponder recent Pacific monsoons and their “half a meter in 24 hours” totals and shudder at the very though. Sometimes it’s not the winds that get you.

    Stay safe, y’all!

  31. 31.

    Ken

    @Gvg: I wouldn’t bother to read her anyway because she misses the point or significance of almost everything that happens right in front of her.

    There’s a funny take on that in Terry Pratchett’s The Truth, where a reporter turns in an article something like,

    “At the Ankh-Morpork Ladies’ Flower Show, the first prize was awarded to Mrs. Jones for her orange dahlia, and the second prize to Mrs. Smith for her white rose. The award ceremony was briefly interrupted when a naked man, pursued by the City Watch, ran through the hall. When it resumed, Mrs. Brown received third prize for her chrysanthemums.”

  36. 36.

    Gvg

    Oh, and some people were speculating that Desantis would refuse to take federal aid because of his national ambitions. He has already accepted the funds and declared all Florida counties to be disaster sites so we can get the federal aid process rolling. This is normal Florida hurricane procedure. He’d lose re election here if he didn’t do it. By following norms and no big deal we know what we are doing, he shouldn’t be hurt here. The feds will preposition their resources just out of the way and rush in right after. This is like planning a large war logistics and not following the plan causes major problems but sticking with it makes it look good.

    Now the aftermath and the insurance problems he and the legislature haven’t dealt with have a huge potential to blow up in their faces but also hurt a lot of ordinary people including many not even damaged with companies leaving or raising rates.

  37. 37.

    jonas

    How common is it for hurricanes to actually form in the Gulf of Mexico, as opposed to way out in the Atlantic off the coast of Africa? That seems highly unusual, and disconcerting. The water is so warm, that it can actually generate a Category 4 hurricane more or less just sitting there w/o it having to travel over thousands of miles of ocean picking up steam, as it were. Crazy.

  38. 38.

    Alison Rose 💙🌻💛

    Hmm….I have a friend who lives in Port St Lucie. I can’t tell from that map if she would be in a danger area, but I’m gonna check in with her.

    In other news: Kazakhstan says it won’t recognise referendums in eastern Ukraine

    “As for the holding of referendums … Kazakhstan proceeds from the principles of territorial integrity of states, their sovereign equivalence and peaceful coexistence,” ministry spokesman Aibek Smadiyarov said.

    No one likes you, vlad.

  40. 40.

    dmsilev

    @Ken: Yes, but it’s Ankh-Morpork. Naked men, or naked trolls or dwarves or whatever, running through awards ceremonies is just one of those things, background color basically, and wouldn’t really be newsworthy.

  42. 42.

    Doc Sardonic

    @Betty Cracker: Yeah, members of my family came up from Tampa Bay to evacuate because her husband’s company had their emergency network facility in Orlando. Would have been better off staying in Tampa.

  43. 43.

    bbleh

    Be careful of this one — it’s forecast to have a REALLY BIG wind field and to move SLOWLY, which means a lot of people are going to be dealing with a lot of wind (and rain) for a long time.  The cone is just the envelope of uncertainty of where the center will go, but the severe weather will extend well outside it.

    Good luck!  Having lived in hurricane-land for many years when I was young, I don’t miss them.

  45. 45.

    GrannyMC

    With the current track, I am close to ground zero (west Pasco County, FL, very near the coast). Also in a high-probability storm surge area (current prediction, 3-6 feet above ground level). I’m going to evacuate to my sisters’ house which is high enough to not have a surge problem but is still close enough to the coast that wind could be an issue, although it survived Irma. We really don’t have any  other options other than a shelter. We’re very anxious but as well-prepared as we can be–lots of water, ice, batteries, canned food, propane for the grill (if it doesn’t blow away), etc.

    With Irma, we still had three large dogs to contend with, but they have passed away since and have not been replaced. We loaded the dogs and all three of us into a small car and drove to my brother’s house in Maryland. After that nightmare, we swore we would never do that again. It was bumper-to-bumper all the way at highway speeds, and hotels were booked all the way so we had to do it in one day. On the plus side, every rest stop on the way had volunteers and local fire departments handing out free water and people were very courteous, and we didn’t get caught behind any accidents. In any case, my brother’s house is no longer available having been occupied by our niece’s family, so they have no space. I’m not sure I could survive the drive anyway with my back problems and other medical issues.

    I am tryng to view this as an adventure and not a potentially life-changing disaster, and I have family resources to help me get through this, but a lot of my neighbors are elderly and living on SS with no personal transportation and no family in the area, and I am very worried about them. I have no confidence in our local emergency services or our dumbass Trumpist sheriff to deal with something on this scale.

  49. 49.

    John Revolta

    Moved to Jacksonville from Up North 3 months ago. Looks like we’ll get a chance to test our roof!

    Ah well, at least a hurricane you get plenty of notice. Last February(!) we had to run down in the basement to hide from a tornado. It’s always something!

  50. 50.

    Doc Sardonic

    @Gvg: Insurance companies are already leaving and rates have already risen by north of 50% increases. Add in the new scam to get out of paying storm claims, if you have a roof that is 15 years, 1 day old you will be lucky to find coverage.

  52. 52.

    Cameron

    BREAKING: Governor DeSantis has just ordered that Ian be intercepted prior to landfall and transported by charter aircraft to Martha’s Vineyard.

  54. 54.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @trollhattan: If I had the magic power of the sharpie, the hurricane would impossibly disintegrate and then reform only over the governor’s mansion.

  56. 56.

    Betty

    Wishing all of the Florida residents safe passage of the storm. As several people noted, hurricanes don’t always behave as predicted. I hope the damage is minimal and the recovery is quick. Here in the Caribbean we have a new one that decided overnight to look like trouble. Will be watching carefully.

  57. 57.

    jonas

    @Alison Rose 💙🌻💛: Oof. The Central Asian republics have generally been happy to toe Vlad’s line, seeing as most of them are also authoritarian regimes and enjoy a Russian security umbrella. But he may have crossed that line now. And the umbrella is, well, not as robust as it once appeared, to put it mildly.

  59. 59.

    Ken

    @Betty:  As several people noted, hurricanes don’t always behave as predicted.

    John Barnes’ Mother of Storms has several discussions of the physics and behavior of hurricanes. One that I found striking said that hurricanes are processes, not things. That means a hurricane doesn’t have momentum, and it can turn in pretty much any direction at any time.

  60. 60.

    Eunicecycle

    @Betty Cracker: I have a friend who was vacationing in Tampa. There was a mandatory evacuation for tourists, so they had to leave, and she was sent to a place that ended up directly in Charley’s path. After it was over she returned to her hotel in Tampa that wasn’t touched.

  61. 61.

    Old School

    Mother-in-law lives a little north of Tampa, so we’ve been watching the trackers.  She’s a little bit inland, so the current plan is for her to ride out Ian.  Hopefully the storm doesn’t gather too much strength.

  62. 62.

    ArchTeryx

    @Doc Sardonic: Think DeSantis will be able to resist letting the insurance companies prey on the disaster victims in his state?  And if not, will he lose a single vote for doing it?

  63. 63.

    Alison Rose 💙🌻💛

    @jonas: I wouldn’t be surprised if they had continued to kiss his ass if russia were actually performing well in the war. But since they’re getting the shit kicked out of them, perhaps some of his erstwhile pals are like “LOL fuck this guy”

  69. 69.

    Josie

    In the early days of our marriage, we had to leave our home due to flooding and the loss of electricity from a major hurricane. We moved to a friend’s house for a while, then, when they lost electricity, all of us moved to another friend’s house. During all the moving around, we took with us a very pissed off cat and his cat box. My husband, who was not overly fond of the cat, dubbed our vehicle “the cat shit express.” I always think back to those fun times when a hurricane comes into the gulf.

  71. 71.

    Kropacetic

    @Omnes Omnibus: I was able to find an answer to Newt’s question with a quick Google search. In Breitbart, of all places, and without the dark insinuation Gingrich made.

    Politicians need to be called on these dark insinuations about things that are easily knowable.

    For example, it would be terribly irresponsible for someone to Tweet “Why did Newt Gingrich serve his wife divorce papers on her death bed?”

  72. 72.

    Doc Sardonic

    @ArchTeryx:

    Think DeSantis will be able to resist letting the insurance companies prey on the disaster victims in his state?  And if not, will he lose a single vote for doing it?

    At this point DeSantis, his toady the Insurance Commissioner, and the legislature have been happily cosplaying as Knights of MAGA culture warriors, so the insurance companies have been running amok. At least Rick Scott (hoaaaaark, spit) keep his foot firmly on the insurance companies necks in some aspects. Will he pay a political price, It’s Florida, Jake, so who knows. It could depend on how the wallet hits fall, a bunch of his rich cronies take it in the shorts and get stiffed by the insurance crowd he might.

  75. 75.

    lowtechcyclist

    My FIL and BIL are in Plant City, which at least is an hour inland and ~130 feet above sea level.  But could still get a shitload of rain and wind.

  77. 77.

    Andrew Abshier

    Sarasota County has already ordered evacuation of the mobile home parks, and will soon, if not already, order coastal areas evacuated.  I have an evacuation location in the Gainesville area if push comes to shove, but I’m not in a coastal area.

  78. 78.

    MattF

    Just to note: we’re getting solid predictions of a hurricane’s path five days in advance. That’s remarkable.

  79. 79.

    lowtechcyclist

    The family of a co-worker of mine was going to vacation in Florida next week: WDW and Anna Maria Island.  Hope the island is still there next week…

  81. 81.

    Joey Maloney

    @Andrew Abshier:

    Sarasota County has already ordered evacuation of the mobile home parks

    What do a cat 5 hurricane and a Mississippi divorce have in common? One way or another, someone’s losing the trailer.

  83. 83.

    BC in Illinois

    @HumboldtBlue:

    @rikyrah:

    @Joey Maloney:

    Vladimir Putin gives Russian citizenship to Edward Snowden.

    Well, he is 39, and has military experience.

    Feeling a duty to fight in the Iraq War to help free oppressed people, Snowden enlisted in the United States Army on May 7, 2004, and became a Special Forces candidate through its 18X enlistment option. He did not complete the training due to bilateral tibial stress fractures, and was discharged on September 28, 2004.

  88. 88.

    James E Powell

    Meanwhile, in the Beltway, everyone in the press is working on their first draft of “How DeSantis Beat the Hurricane”

  91. 91.

    Betty Cracker

    @Eunicecycle: Haha, poor thing!

    My hometown is about 70 miles north of Tampa, and for some reason I can’t fathom, my stepmom and granny went to the Orlando area to escape Hurricane Charley in 2004. They ended up spending most of the night in the hallway of their hotel, where the staff had shooed them because the floor-to-ceiling glass windows in their room were at risk of blowing out.

    The next morning, they went to their SUV, which was parked on the roof of the hotel parking garage. The windows were busted out because a nearby building had a gravel roof and the wind blew the rocks into their car. The town they’d evacuated didn’t even get a stiff breeze out of the deal!

  93. 93.

    kalakal

    More or less at Ground Zero here in Pinellas, we’re about 5 miles inland. Fortunately we’re in the Andes of Pinellas county at 80 ft up. We’re stocked up and hoping the house stands up to the wind. It stood up to Irma and it’s on a lot better shape now than it was then. Stay safe everybody.

  94. 94.

    geg6

    @Alison Rose 💙🌻💛: ​
     
    Based on that map, I doubt it will hit Port St. Lucie. It looks to me to be north of that area. My sister lived in Stuart for about 12 years and one of my best friends has a home on Hutchinson Island. The area is pretty far south.

  95. 95.

    Jackie

    My daughter lives in Winter Haven – south of Orlando and east of Tampa. Schools will be closed tomorrow and Wed, as they will be used for shelters if needed. They’ve had so much rain lately that the lakes and rivers are already at flood stage, so there’s a real chance with Ian’s expected rain dump trees will be downed with any winds.

  96. 96.

    coin operated

    @HumboldtBlue:

    If Snowball ever got sent to the front and was captured by the Ukrainians, I might have to rethink my athiesm for it would truly be a supernatural series of events.

  98. 98.

    Fair Economist

    @Betty Cracker: As I recall, Charley was supposed to make landfall around Tampa, so your relatives would have been at some risk and Orlando would have been fairly safe from that storm. Then fairly late Charley strengthened abruptly *and* veered right to smack them. So not a nuts decision, just another lesson that you don’t want to be overprecise on what a hurricane will do. If Charley had strengthened and NOT veered right, I’m guessing they might have been hit really hard by what was essentially a ginormous tornado.

  100. 100.

    Madeleine

    My sister and her husband bought a house in a town called Zephyrhills in Pasco County last year. They just returned to it from summering in the North. Ian will make such a nice welcome to these second-year snowbirds. (They’re well prepared, my sis tells me, and they have god.)

  104. 104.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    Was there a movie featuring Russian conscripts in WW2 being issued one clip of bullets and instructions to scavenge rifles off their dead fellow conscripts? Or was that just from the first Call of Duty game?

  109. 109.

    catclub

    @Gvg: not just keep them carelessly where anyone else

     

    tradecraft says that once you give the information to an enemy agent, return the document to the files so the US does not know it has lost this.

    When You tell Trump this – that he now has to return the document, he keeps it. This is my working model.

  110. 110.

    gvg

    @MattF: No we aren’t and no it isn’t. The predictions are not solid. The track predictions will still wobble all over. that is why most Floridians know to check the spaghetti track which is a map showing about 18 different models. NONE of the models have a good enough record to be the one we rely on and all of them have been right some times. By looking at all of them, it keeps you aware of how messy the real possibilities are. The cone is too simplistic.

    On the other side of it, the predictions are still pretty useful and good and it is perfectly normal for us to have this much idea 5 days in advance or even more. This is pretty typical and some years we have several we have to get ready for.

  113. 113.

    Mike in NC

    Our friends in Tampa plan to ride out the storm. Meanwhile, ground has just been broken for their new home in Asheville NC.

  114. 114.

    gvg

    @jonas: This storm didn’t form in the gulf, it formed in the Atlantic and traveled into the gulf to strengthen, and that is actually a common pattern.  Before they are big enough to be “named” they are called #___tropical depression. I think this one was #94 or something like that.

    Alot of the depressions form right off the coast of Africa near the equator and travel west along the equator. As they start to spin, they start to wobble like tops and go different directions. There are depressions on the south side of the equator too, and they curl the other way and go up and hit South America.  In 2004 when we were getting hit over and over, those depressions were forming off Africa almost every 7 days, and almost all of them turned into storms, instead of most of them fizzling like a normal year. Because of the repeated hurricanes (we had 4 majors in 1 year) people were asking more questions and the news channels were pulling back to show the satellite views of the whole atlantic so we could see the string of storms getting ready to hit us. The Gulf being so warm was a major reason our storms have been getting worse.

    Katrina Reformed  after going across south Florida and losing strength. She increased 2 or 3 catagories overnight in the Gulf and it was predicted. It wasn’t the first time nor the last. The gulf heat is dangerous.

  115. 115.

    JPL

    @raven:  Roswell should get rain and some wind, but cities to the east can expect more.   (sorry)

    Two years ago, I lost a tree and was without power for several days.   At least it wasn’t cold.

  116. 116.

    Geminid

    Snowdon is too valuable for the Russians to sacrifice. That would also discourage other Snowdons in the US and other countries from defecting in the future. He gave the Russians a lot.

  118. 118.

    sab

    I’m so old that I remember Hurricane Donna that went into the Gulf, then did a right turn across central Florida and out into the Atlantic around Daytona Beach. It knocked over a big live oak in our front yard.

    Stay safe Floridians.

  123. 123.

    Mrscoachb

    @Jackie: We live just east of Winter Haven, the eastern edge of Polk County.  The canal in our backyard will definitely flood, it’s at the grass line already.   I expect to lose power, and need to test the generator.   Low stocks at the grocery store, and gas stations.   We’ve only been impacted by Irma, no damage to the house, but the yard debris was a total mess.  No power for a week, it was not fun, even with a generator.  Daily excursions to get gas…long lines, people arguing.

  124. 124.

    Betty Cracker

    @Mrscoachb: It’s amazing how thin the veneer of civilization is. I remember people squabbling over gas after Irma too, and in Florida, you’ve got to assume they’re armed. Stay safe!

  127. 127.

    Gravenstone

    @sab: Painfully aware. I still have 10 of the fucking things on my property. And that’s after whittling a few down over time due to damage, defect, or just shitty planning by the prior owner (who was responsible for planting every fucking one of them beyond the aged progenitor from which he took shoots).

  129. 129.

    sab

    @Gravenstone: Sorry about that. We had a willow tree in my yard as a child. I loved that tree, but I could understand Tolkien casting one as malevolent in his books.

  131. 131.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Geminid: ​
     

    I think Snowdon gave Russia a lot more than trump could have.

    How??

    I mean, we’ve all learned a lot this summer about the protocols for protecting classified info – that it’s not just that it’s protected from people lacking the requisite clearance, it’s also supposed to be protected from people who lack the need to know.

    It’s easy to see how Trump, as President of the United States, could have and did override those protections. But Snowden, not even an NSA employee but working for contractor Booz Allen Hamilton – how did he manage that??

  132. 132.

    J R in WV

    I was on a USN ship lifted way in a floating drydock in Mobile Bay, AL when Hurricane Agnes blew through the FL panhandle not nearly far enough away. For days we rigged big tight hawsers from the drydock to the fixed docks and from the ship to the drydock. Closed every watertight door and hatch, put metal covers on nearly every porthole, there were a tiny handful open to keep watch, Waterfalls down the sides of the ship. Was scary as fuck to feel things moving that were NOT supposed to be free to move.

    Wife was in Key West at the time… tornadoes there, but not so much hurricane.

    Now we live on the western side of the Appalachian Mtns, don’t want nothing to do wit no Hurricane, no sir!

    Adam, Betty, alla you FLA Juicers, be careful, take all precautions, be safe, keep in touch afterwards!

  136. 136.

    Burnspbesq

    Relatively far down on the list of things to be concerned about, but if it follows the current projections Ian is likely to royally screw up the end of the Major League Baseball season. Mets and Braves are scheduled for a three-game series in Atlanta this weekend, which will likely decide the NL East. The wise thing would be to move the games now, but Braves will lose the revenue from three sellouts.

  137. 137.

    Gvg

    I just read that the wind field on this one is 300 miles wide. It is going to impact the whole state which is not that wide. The weather channels use a standard sized symbol and come for every hurricane. They don’t display that some of them are a lot bigger than others in size. Also size isn’t the same as power or speed. This one may only be a cat 1 when it makes landfall but it is huge, and a rainmaker over a big area projections have it moving slow. That means flooding over a big area.

  138. 138.

    Geminid

    @lowtechcyclist: Snowden got access to broader NSA information the same way he got the info on the warrantless wiretapping for which he is credited by many as a heroic whistleblower. I assume he exploited vulnerabilities he learned of in his role as contractor.

    Exactly how I could not begin to tell you. I am constantly outsmarted by my own smartphone. You can look up all the reporting on this matter yourself. I’m not going to try to persuade you. But I am persuaded.

  139. 139.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Geminid:

    I realize this is the next day and all, but:

    I assume he exploited vulnerabilities he learned of in his role as contractor.

    For me, it keeps coming back to the absence of heads rolling at Booz Allen Hamilton.  You’d figure at least they’d find themselves with a drastically reduced role as NSA contractor.  But if anything happened to them, it certainly didn’t make the news.

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