"The Buzzsaw"--Hurricane Matthew Comes North

[JerryHofschneider]

The population has awakened.
I had to get in a long line at the gas station this morning to fill up, and later, as I went to buy batteries and beer, I noticed that Publix was out of batteries and nearly out of bottled water and beer. There were no lines at Dunkin' Donuts, however.
On TV, there are scenes from the "other" coast of Florida, of large freeways totally clogged with refugees trying to put space between themselves and the arriving buzzsaw of Hurricane Matthew, and these scenes are enlightening a few million people more to the seriousness of this storm.
-- The Gov has declared the whole State a Disaster Zone.
-- The National Guard is assembling.
-- Most of the Atlantic Shore has been ordered to evacuate. Inland.
They'll all be coming here. This has happened before, in '05, when two hurricanes hit the eastern side of the State. Ocala filled right up.
-- Already, places like Alabama and Tennessee are sending electric crews to help with the post-storm cleanup.

If you look at an overhead pic of Matthew, the feeder bands-- which will encompass a 200+ mile diameter--look like the serrated blade on a circular saw or a weedeater, and when you see a rapid time lapse, Matthew (with its' eye a tight, centered sphincter) is slicing itself a wide path across the warm Carribbean water as it zeroes in on the Florida coast. It's feeding off the bathtub-warm waters and keeping up its strength.
It's now a Cat 4, near the worst, and is projected to maybe drop to a Cat 3--still a horrible storm!
The People With Maps have also described it as a 'monster".

The weatherheads are sending messages of caution. Matthew is a BIG one.

If their projections have any accuracy--and hurricanes are notoriously unpredictable--the Cat 3--or 4-- eye of the storm will pass east of me tomorrow afternoon.
The coast will see massive destruction. It's all heavily urbanized, from Homestead to Palm Beach and Daytona and beyond, an almost endless wall of multimillion-dollar, big city high-rise condos and hotels and mansions and malls, and the beaches and a mile or so inland from shore will probably be chewed into a big pile of recyclables.
Also, Florida's beaches always get washed away in an East Coast storm.

The feeder bands, at hurricane strength, will be chopping up a territory of around 100-120 miles inland from the eye.
I live 80 miles from the coast, directly west of Daytona.

If it stays close to the coast ( or comes ashore) we WILL be in a hurricane here.

If it stays 30 miles or more offshore, we'll be on the fringe of the worst, but still all involved with a large Tropical Storm.
We'll probably get very big, destructive winds-- 50 to 70 MPH, and 8"-10" of rain--or more. The rain is nothing. I live on top of something that looks like a hill, and water always flows downhill.
No, what worries me most is the wind.
I have 12 mature Water Oaks on my property, all of them close enough to the house to cause problems if one get blown over.
Also, my house is contracted to sell and I'm expecting the closing to be on the first week of Nov. I have a housing appraisal due next week. This could get VERY complicated.

I'm making ice, unpacking candles and re-batterizing my portable radios. The tank in the G is full. There's enough beer, water and weed for a long weekend and I'll probably be living off of deli sandwiches when the power goes off, so i have ham, turkey and bologna as my new best friends. I have a bag packed with essentials for a quick escape if I need it and I'll be sleeping in my jeans.

Hurricane conditions around here could last for a day and a night or more as Matthew wrecks Florida and moves north, then it's on to the aftermath as the buzzsaw looks at the Carolinas and that delicate ecosystem.

If anybody reading this is in the storm's path, good luck and stay safe.

[ArmedAviator]

I'm flying all along the east coast starting tomorrow into Sunday. Raleigh, Charlotte, DC, and Newport News, amongst others.

Awesome................

[JerryHofschneider]

THURSDAY 9 AM...The day began, overcast, humid and still. I brought some potted plants in and cleared the patio of chairs and things that could blow around. There's plenty of ice and several gallons of water and beer stashed, and I have enough food to get through a couple days. Some friends who live in a mobile home are staying here until the worst passes. We are 10 hours away from any severe effects, so today will seem normal. Nighttime will get hairy.
I'm at least 100 miles distant from the scariest part of Matthew, the windy eye, but local weather advisories indicate very high, sustained winds and torrential rain will assault Central Florida for as much as 24 hours, starting about sunset tonight. Trees will fall, power will go away, tornadoes are possible and if the worst case evolves, Ocala may shut down for a few days.
I have lived along the Gulf Coast for 30 years and am used to the anxiety that occurs when a big storm threatens, but this thing is the biggest one to come near me since I've lived here, and I'm genuinely concerned.
I fear for the coastal towns. I have many friends who live near the ocean, and those I've spoken with have moved inland, leaving their homes to the fates. One of my friends lives right on the Intercoastal near Jacksonville. He's evacuating his family this afternoon. He has a collection of a dozen true classic cars--a Duesenberg, a 300SL Gullwing, a 1929 Cord, C2 and C3 Corvettes, etc-- and is afraid he's going to lose them all.

--1 PM...some gusty winds. No surprise there. Still no apparent effects. Miami is getting whipped badly, but it's towns further up the coast that will feel the full effects of Matthew later today

[JerryHofschneider]

UPDATE 2
3 PM
Went to buy batteries at Winn-Dixie. The entire water & juice aisle was empty shelves, and the battery display was picked clean. There were a few packs of the batteries that I needed...on the way home, I passed three gas stations doing capacity business, with several stalls displaying "EMPTY" signs... the first of the feeder bands passed overhead, bringing really dark skies and a surprisingly cold rain. It grew in intensity from sprinkles to deluge in minutes...

[JerryHofschneider]

UPDATE 3
7:30
Local news showed rest areas on the interstate around here are plugged with refugees, many of whom plan to live in their cars for awhile. They have to--the motels are all full. One local motel informed their guests that tomorrow the rates go from $70 per night to $250 per night. One of the refugee guests was a lawyer who called the States Attorney's office who sent an investigator to the motel who told the management to NOT raise any rates, or else. There are also reports of gas stations on the coast jacking the price to $9.99.9 per gallon.
A few rain bands have passed through, keeping the area wet, but right now it's not raining and the air is dead calm.
The sun is down and it's really dark. with low clouds reflecting the reddish lights of downtown.
Weather maps show the worst of the weather is just southeast of Ocala, heading this way fast. The people who know about this stuff say expect all hell to arrive around 10 PM, then spend the night.
It'll be stormy until past Noon tomorrow.

[JerryHofschneider]

UPDATE 4
11:45
Still quiet.
The radar shows the bulk of the rain shield approaching. It's the leading edge of a 160-mile blob of hurricane spawned water that is already flooding the Florida that's to the South of me with record hourly rain.
It has been raining lightly here since 8PM and for the last half-hour there's been a slight, constant breeze, with little mini-gusts to remind you that this weather is just beginning.

My cable provider gives me 6 Orlando stations, so I'm being fed 6 different impressions of the storm, live. All the news providers have their on-the-spot reporters standing on the beach in a wind-whipped hoodie, marveling at the growing nastiness of the weather as they get pushed around by the wind and sandpapered by the beach sand, and the colorful radar shots of the hurricane are shown endlessly, its wobbly eye and its brilliant reds and purples emphasizing the sheer strength and size of the thing. It's a Cat 4, an almost worst-case scenario...
--Disney World has closed and the guests are being asked to move to designated shelters. Disney has only closed 4 times due to weather.
-Over 2.5 million have evacuated, many of them coming to Ocala. We're the next county over from Volusia County (Daytona Beach) and the main road in from there --Silver Springs Blvd--is bumper-to-bumper with refugees.
--A curfew has gone into effect in several areas.
--Most towns near the beach have emptied out, so,
--Looters are targeting the empty homes of the refugees.

I've been watching since 9, non-stop.
The storm is a slow mover, bad news for the beach towns that will have to endure this for hour upon hour. Some places, like Fort Pierce, have SUSTAINED winds of 100 plus, with gusts to 120-130. Most are just getting 40-50 MPH sustained, and see bigger wind in their future.
As do I.
The forecasts put Ocala in the wind and rain at around 3AM. We will get wind in the 40-50 MPH range, with gusts to 70--and that will last through most of tomorrow, leaving the area around midnight Friday.

[frapjap]

Looking forwards to your next update, since Daytona is next up in an hour or so for their turn getting the worst of it. Friends down in my hometown in Melbourne were made to evacuate on the ocean and Indian river. Most went west, some stayed put, riding it out.
With the potential for a 4 (though it looks like they won't get the most intense stuff now), it would be silly to stay. Growing up, I remember the news when Andrew decimated Homestead, and years later, driving through the area to nothing but rubble.

[JerryHofschneider]

frapjap--
I was in Miami mere hours after Andrew. My brother ran a medical courier service and was asked by the Red Cross to deliver blood to Jackson Memorial Hospital in DT Miami. He picked me up in Cape Coral about an hour after Andrew passed over Homestead. When we got to Miami, we saw something that few humans have ever witnessed--the 4 level interchange at the Palmetto expressway, normally a massive, gridlocked traffic jam at any hour, was completely devoid of cars. It was empty, as was I-95 and the normally busy city streets around Jackson. The only traffic was the National Guard or the cops.
We delivered the blood, then went sightseeing.
Trees were down, blocking the roads but we made it as far South as the Univ of Miami before passage became impossible. That part of Miami got about what we are experiencing here, but just a few miles further the destruction was complete.

UPDATE 5
10 AM FRIDAY
Not much happened overnight.
I faded away around 1AM. Conditions were crappy but not scary.
I awoke at 7 to much the same.
It's been lightly raining with a mild breeze that erupts into sudden gusts. The eye is almost directly East now, floating along off of Daytona Beach. They are getting very heavy surf and torrential rain and the wind is whipping the palm trees around, making them look like big, green cheerleader's pom-poms.
The eyewall, which has the heaviest wind, is only about 10-15 miles off of their shore.

We are enveloped in a huge rain blob. The wind here is a constant, probably 20 MPH, but with enough sudden, random violence to remind us that it is still a hurricane that's just down the road, and the Weather Channel says to expect this all day long. The Coast has been battered but inland has been spared any horror.
Our schools are closed, as are the courts and some of the businesses. My friends, mobile home refugees, feel embarrassed that the storm turned out to be so weak, so they bought breakfast at McDonald's, which remained open all night long. The roads were nearly empty and no one was in the takeout lanes, she said.
Usually, at that hour the roads are busy with the morning traffic jam and the irritating parade of schoolbuses, but not today.

Man, we just got one hell of a powerful gust...

[float_6969]

It's almost 10P on Friday, If you still have power/internet, do you have any updates?

[JerryHofschneider]

UPDATE 6
LAST DATE
2PM SATURDAY
Friday was windy as hell, along with some constant, often heavy rain.
My yard is filled with branches--some that will need to be cut up.
Mid-afternoon--during the worst of it-- most of North Ocala lost power. I could hear the transformers blow, sounding like a small war was going on somewhere nearby. There was some minor street flooding and a LOT of trees fell.
My TV/computer went down and I had to rely on a 20th Century battery-powered radio for updates, but the lights were back by sunset. The cable/ computer finally came on around 11 PM.
Oddly, the power shutoff screwed up my computer and I temporarily lost the ability to sign on to NICO--or anyplace else.

At times the wind was threatening and I worried about trees falling on my house, and sometimes the house gave off a weird moan as the wind teased the eaves, sounding like a ghost or a spectre had gotten inside--but in the end nothing serious happened.
That went on until around 6 PM, then Matthew continued to went North (sic) and we were left with lingering gusts as a final goodby. Sunset was a brilliant orange-yellow.

He went on to Jacksonville, then went to Savannah then to Charleston.
Right now,he's wenting his way to N Carolina, and doing a lot of damage on his way.
He has managed to damage or destroy about 600 miles of some of the most expensive coastal real estate in the country. I wonder what the final damage tally might be. It will be a large number, I'm sure.

Even though I have lived in Hurricane Alley for nearly 45 years, Matthew is the only powerful hurricane ever to get this close, and it really had me on edge for a couple days. Fortunately, we were right on the skinny fringe between disaster and inconvenience.

Today he has decided to pick on places further north, a few of my favorite towns. The Weather Channel reporters were broadcasting from River St In Savannah, a place I often shoot up to on weekends, and Charleston, another favorite spot. Both have had immense flooding.
My friends have gone back to their mobile home. They called a couple hours ago to tell me that their power has finally come on. They, along with about 2 million Floridians,were without power until mid-morning.
I spent most of the AM cleaning crap off my roof and lawn, and later I'll have to chop up some of the big branches.

It was pretty exciting for awhile, but Matthew is finally gone, although some projections have him doing a 360 and coming BACK to hit Florida again. THAT would be historic.

[dasoupdude]

Miami all the way up to Palm Beach Dodged a bullet, it was almost disappointing to some residents because of the level of preparedness everyone had.

I work at a resort in Manalapan and we feared the worst because of the destruction that Sandy did years back, despite the major distance from Florida (I think it was a couple hundred), it managed to do around a million dollars worth of Damage. It also closed the hotel for 2 months. Everyone was expecting the worst, the chief engineer said we would most likely have a nice knee high pool in the lobby once the storm was done lol.

We've got till November 30 till the seasons over so we're not just out of the woods yet.

[ArmedAviator]

I flew into Jacksonville, FL on Thursday morning and left right away. Was getting windy, but not too bad.

Thursday night we stayed in Raleigh, NC. Just some rain that evening through the morning which was a downer. Not much wind.

Friday night we were safe and sound in Albany, NY. Saturday we were in and out of Charlotte, NC. That was the first time we flew well into the hurricane. We hit moderate turbulence for most of our descent into Charlotte, with some pockets of smooth air. When we began the approach about 25 miles from the airport, it was back up to moderate turbulence with +/- 20 knots of windshear at 1,000' (that's bad, mmmmkay) and it was my FO's first time landing a jet in this kind of weather. He did a good job.

We spent Saturday night in Newport News, VA. Before I went to bed, we got a call saying our 9:15am flight was cancelled because the aircraft that we would have taken was not able to land in Newport News that evening due to heavy rain and winds causing the runways to have too much standing water. We were delayed until the next Charlotte-bound flight at 1pm and rode two flights home to Cincinnati which was much less fun.