Editor’s Note: this is late this afternoon but important. I am a professionally certified crisis junky, and it kept me up late, then awake late, and then glued to the latest reports. As someone who grew up in Michigan blizzards and Detroit riots, these are important and validated tips for staying alive…pray for those in peril from the wrath of the sea. So far impressed by the Feds, State and locals in response…and the calmness of the five million who evacuated…

– Vic

Hatch Battening

From space sensors, Hurricane Irma is the most perfect appearing storm I have ever seen.

We had futzed around and fitzed about for several days to see what Irma was likely to do. We had:

bought food, water, liquor, smokes, ice
filled the car tanks with gas and our wallets with cash
occasionally watched the Weather Channel for updates, preferring the serenity of cable TV’s jazz and blues music channels
inventoried the number and inspected the condition of our storm shutters and fasteners
initially planned our hurricane meals

I95 just west of us had been filled the past three days with mostly orderly Floridians motoring safely northward. Some were likely headed to Atlanta or Augusta while most were en-route the far western regions of the Carolina’s.

Floridian traffic jam on Georgia’s I95, September 7 2017 (Courtesy GDOT)

Having been flayed for his lackadaisical response to last October’s Hurricane Matthew approach, Georgia’s governor erred on the safe side, pre-announcing early Thursday afternoon a mandatory Irma evacuation of all residents east of Georgia’s section of I95 commencing Saturday morning. That meant us just like last time.

Crap . . .

. . . I don’t like driving on clogged roads. On Friday morning with less than 72 hours to the commencement of Georgia’s Irma shaking, the storm eye tracking cone had swerved way left to the west and encompassed all of Georgia.

Double crap . . .

. . . island friends who had left two days ago to shelter with in laws in Atlanta were now is Irma’s crosshairs. Plus, Irma’s curvy hip-swerving eye track now was steering a direct course to our stayer island friends in the Keys.

Keys officials were blunt “If you stay, you are on your own . . . we will not risk the safety of our first responders for your irresponsibility. I can’t stress that any more; you need to leave.” 25 to 30 thousand residents had departed as of Friday morning with many longtime locals heeding the warning to leave the path of Irma.

This is what weak Category 4 Hurricane Harvey did in Rockport TX
when it struck. (Courtesy Jeff Piotrowski via weatherunderground.com)

Monroe Country’s administrator said with undisguised awe “I’ve been around here about ten years, guys that have grown up here, the Conchs . . . I’ve never seen them react the way they have.”
Key West City Commissioner Billy Wardlow, a Key West native, said Irma is the worst storm he’s seen in his 63 years. “This is the biggest and the baddest that I’ve seen in my lifetime in Key West,” he said.

Unusual sight: a lonely Southernmost Point buoy in Key West September 7 2017 (Courtesy Key West Citizen)

The weather guessers at Key West’s weather station had hoisted their storm flags and raised their hard wood shutters on their Category 5 proof station windows when they put out the succinct tweet:
***THIS IS AS REAL AS IT GETS***
***NOWHERE IN THE FLORIDA KEYS WILL BE SAFE***
***YOU STILL HAVE TIME TO EVACUATE***

Battened down: National Weather Service station in Key West

I have never heard Conchs speak this way during the past 43 years. While sustained hurricane force winds will not reach the Keys until late Saturday, the county opened all four shelters of last resort early today. Some of our friends have decided to stay. In one instance, they will be caring for those who cannot be moved.—-
Friday was decision day for hatch battening here in the northernmost Coastal Empire. Projected storm intensity for the storm’s Georgia passover had varied from Category 1 – no big deal – to Category 4 – holy guacamole, settling more or less around a strong, sustained tropical wind smackdown.

Yay . . .

. . . in the garage would stay the ladders, the precut plywood boards, the nails, the hammers, the screws, screw drivers, drills, bits and socket sets. The weather gods had issued us a plenary indulgence from shutter prep and emplacement on second story windows that would have taken more than eight hours . . .

. . . a Category 3 plus storm winds prediction for our area would have made our scoot/stay decision simple — we would blow this popsickle stand and head in a generally westerly direction on state and local roads for the balmier climes of western Georgia. Not surprisingly, we could only find expensive shelter north of Atlanta and bargain shelter 340 miles away somewhere near Montgomery, Alabama. This was a binary existential call. Experience has taught us that hurricanes, when their centers are over warm waters, could leap upward two strength categories in less than four hours. So we tarried and watched Irma’s track intently a bit longer . . .

Casa de huricanes en Montgomery Alabama

Yay . . .

Not on the road again
we just hate to get on the road again
the life we love is cooking and eating with our friends
and we’re so glad to not be back on the road again

Not on the road again
Getting lost in places we’ve never been
seein’ things that we hope we never see again
and we’re so glad to not be back on the road again

Not on the road again
like a band of gypsies on triple digit highways
we’re the best of friends with TWC
and we’re so glad Irma kept churning northwest today

Hatches battened? A definite no on the left; a hearty yes on the right

Friday’s prediction: Irma’s eye track is bending towards the lower Keys and swerving hard left and west over Southwest Georgia

Copyright © 2017 From My Isle Seat
www.vicsocotra.com