Hurricane Wilma / FL Check-in thread

Hi all, looks like those of us in Florida have a small problem to deal with this weekend. For those keeping track, this storm's pressure dropped 69mb in 7.5 hours, which is huge. As of 2am Wednesday, it was officially a Cat 4 storm with 150mph winds and min. central pressure at 901mb... BUT, recon data from the plane suggests ~164mph winds, so that plus the pressure suggests it really is a Cat 5 storm. Either way, it's a nasty storm.

Auto-updating graphic below:


As of 2am on Wednesday (10/19), it appears like this thing's hitting S. Florida somewhere, probably Saturday/Sunday. No telling as to exactly where it'll hit yet, but it's going to be nasty wherever it hits.

Here we go again.

Central and South FL. members check in here and PM or e-mail me contact info.

Notice: I do not keep contact info. after the threat passes and do not share the info. with others. I will not attempt to make contact with you at all unless I feel you may be in need.

Diesel

Still planning to wait it out here in Clearwater. Problem is that by the time we know for almost sure where it is coming, there are no roads to evacuate over 2 million people. I sure wouldn't want to set out the storm in my car!!!

Two of those paths go right over the Lake Okachobee, don't they?

That could increase flooding risks in surrounding areas a lot.

DieselDave, how about posting a sign-in thread with a Florida map showing the locations of members? You don't have to put WHO is at the location, just that someone is.

That actually wouldn't be a bad idea for all the areas of the country if one of the computer literate guys would help with it.



Bill

Good Luck guys! We came through Rita largely unscathed, but did get 10 days of no power.

You'd be suprised at what a 5K genset will pull!

cue003 and I are in South Florida.

Good Luck to those of you in the South East..Those of us on the west coast will be watching and praying..

Gainesville,FL here:

Ive got plenty of water........ and batteries just in case....

-PSM

Stingray here, in Coral Springs (Ft Lauderdale/Broward County) . Looks like it's gonna plow directly over us. I'm well prepared with food, water, lights, batteries, shutters up etc.

Looks like Stingray is getting some serious weather right now. He appears to be about 20-30 miles right (bad side) of the center. Hunker down!

The storm landed 22 miles south of Marco Island at 6:30AM EST and 125mph.

I am in Delray Beach feeling the the wrath at the moment. No power, big wind gusts and trees coming down in my yard. No damage as of yet to the house etc so I will keep my fingers crossed.

Curtis

Well it looks like I made it through okay! Hope everyone else fared as well as I did.

-Allen

Hi all and greetings from Tampa, Florida (and Fort Myers).
The consensus seems to be "very little damage considering there was a Cat 3 hurricane out there." Fort Myers Beach had some minor storm surge & rain flooding, but not much. The north part of the island lost power around 6am local time, while the southern part of the island had power until 9am. Pretty impressive in my book. As of 5pm local time, both are still without power. Haven't heard any any real structural damage. The Lani Kai lost part of the rooftop bar, like they always do (next time, do the damn additions to code!). Trees down all over the place, but the tree trimming crews are already working & clearing roads. All that I got in my place was a bit of wind-driven rain. Generator's cranking away and I have ~2 weeks' worth of fuel there, so life's good on the beach. The water's drinkable, but for some reason, my guests are preferring other types of liquid refreshment stockpiled before the storm.

Reports from Ft. Myers in general are similar type damage, with trees down, some superficial damage to buildings, etc. All in all, not bad. Power is out to most of the area and FP&L isn't saying when it might be back. My best guess would be that at least half the area will be back on by Wednesday, with the majority by Friday, but I've not looked over the whole grid yet. Germain Arena, the area's largest shelter, had ~5,000 people in it at the height of the storm. People are slowly trickling out, not sure how many will return back for the night, but undoubtedly some of them will return. Cell towers seem to be intact, although I've noticed in the past hour or so, some of them aren't responding, so I'm assuming they've lost power & have drained their batteries. (anyone got a boatload of AA batteries? ) Landlines seem to be in good shape. It seems many people in FL still haven't learned to put a line-powered phone somewhere in the house, so quite a few people have phone service, but without power, their cordless phones don't work.

I personally got stuck in Tampa for this one, but entirely unhappy about it. I never lost power nor communications with Fort Myers/Germain arena (Kudos Vonage!). It actually made for a great communcation center, being close enough to the area to respond, but not stuck in the middle of the mess. Had some nice stormage here, had one broad-leafed northern-type tree go over, some wind-driven rain through the window glazing, but otherwise the storm was a non-issue up here. It was quite fun to watch 'though.

I'm in Miami, so this is what it looks like:

Widespread power outage:
956,000 in Miami-Dade
862,000 in Broward
657,000 in Palm Beach
All in all, 97% of FPL customers have no power.
Estimates are 4 weeks. Total number without power
number near 6 million. Damage ranges from Key West
to Daytona Beach, some 8 hours away.

Preliminary estimates of damage are 9 billion dollars.

I got away with some roof damage and a bunch of trees down.

obflashlight:
My Nichia lantern has been great, as is the PrincetonTec EOS. The Fatman 3-way mag with adjustable output, the Lionheart, the VIP (pretty much any light with adjustable output, being run mostly on low), and the Lightwave 4000, have all been our friends.

I initially tried to use the car to recharge my NiMH cells, but then gas became more important for the generators.

Gas lines are over 3 hours and require the police to keep order.

When Katrina and Andrew hit, it was possible to drive to unaffected areas and enjoy civilization (an open McDonalds, grocery stores with food, gas stations, etc).

Now, there is nowhere to go.

A lot of people have no communications. (They have phones that use an AC adapter, and without power, they don't work.) The cellular network is completely jammed. It is almost impossible to place a call, although you can receive one.

School has been cancelled until 10/30.

Now, what would happen with the bird flu?

Hi everyone, still no power here but they have moved up the date to the middle of November for restoration. I'm on car battery power and cell phone internet access...really slow. Cell phones are starting to get unclogged during the off peak times now, they come and go, Cingular seems to be the best so far. Our water is now running and drinkable. We had no water at all the first 4 days, not a drop of water came out out of the faucets. I had plenty stored though. Tons of trees and telephone/power poles down, way way more than expected from this storm. FPL is gonna get a lot of crap for the way their infrastructure failed so drastically and on such a huge, widespread scale. Most of the traffic lights still don't work so it takes forever to get anywhere. Every intersection is like a 4 way stop and there are a million intersections between here and anywhere. And everyone plays chicken. My car got demolished. No work for another month probably so that really sucks. I have eaten so much tuna fish lately that I will probably never eat it again. Did you know you can put cocktail sauce on a can of tuna and it's not so bad....lol. Propane suppliers are gearing up again so that will be a nice reprieve from all this canned food. Gas stations are finally getting powered back up so the lines are dimishing. Some grocery stores are getting power and perishable food in stock but it goes as fast as it comes. It is still pretty miserable around here but every day it gets a little bit better. Many thanks to Led Zeppelin for sending me those batteries, they were sorely needed and they are being put to good use. I thought I was fully prepared for this but one thing I didn't count on in my preparations was that many of my neighbors would be so unprepared. I ended up lending out many of my lights and giving away half my batteries so that they wouldn't be in the dark. None of us expected the outage to last this long. My Tigerlight battery pack died at the worst posible time and won't hold a charge now. It was great because it could light up a whole room really well at night when needed, and could recharge during the day off the car battery. Nothing else I owned even came close while being rechargeable. Anyway, hope everyone else made out better than we did.