Irma to hit here tomorrow/Monday

I’m in Valdosta, GA. On the GA FL state line. Irma is currently running up the state of FL and forecasts say it will run through here tomorrow or Monday. We’re praying that it will lose steam after running up over land and losing power that it gains while over the hot ocean water. They say it could be a cat 2 hurricane when it hits my town which is full of evacuees from FL. Lord willing we won’t have to evacuate with several thousand that have already evacuated. Please pray for ALL in the path of this deadly storm and that it doesn’t take any more lives. I’m ready as can be with enough propane to run my generator for 5 days. I’ve already got a years worth of emergency food in mre’s and freeze dried food. 20 cases of water and a good filter to filter the 45000 gallons of water in my swimming pool. 74 fully charged 18650 batteries and about 60 flashlights with fully charged batteries in them. Of course I have enough weapons and ammo to support a company of marines so any looters will be sorry they attempted to loot my neighborhood.

Hey man, I’m certainly praying for all you folks in the path of this. I’ve been watching this all week, and the weather experts haven’t predicted anything right, yet. If your near the coast, I wouldn’t think less, if you decided to pull out.

My older half-sister is on Florida's East Coast, and will be hunkered down.

I'm glad she's not on Florida's West Coast.

preparedness is wonderful and lauded
we were in an earthquake in 1994 (4AM or so, with no prior warning (Northridge))
we were tent camping people then (no more ground sleeping on these joints now)
we built a campfire in our front yard and had camping gear set up to prepare food (omelettes only) and coffee of course
I had water/gas shutoff tools as I worked then at a public utility and advised everyone to fill all containers they had with water
as it would soon be shut off.
later that morning they shut off the water…the lights were already off.
our immediate nabor had a swimming pool which everyone was allowed to dip their buckets in order to flush their “brown” waste
it was a lesson in community that prepared us for our last (hopefully) flood adventure (2011)

the measure of a person is not how he avoids problems
butt how he deals with them

Thanks for your kind words guys. After a hurricane makes landfall, they usually lose power. Since this storm is so powerful no telling how powerful it will still be after it moves inland. Last summer we had remnants of a hurricane come through here as a tropical storm. Trees roofs torn up. Debris all over the place. Big oak tree limb fell off over my driveway, missed my SUV but landed on the power line coming into the roof and pulled the pole out as well as the power lines leading into our junction box inside. We were without power for a week. My generator comes in handy to run the refridgerators, my man cave which has a window unit a/c, television, etc. Been glued to the news since this storm started. It’s very bad one, never seen one this powerful before and has already torn up islands in the Caribbean and killed several people. Looks like Tampa is going to take a huge hit. Lord protect those people!

Yep, have been getting some of the weather today(squalls, storms and tornados ), expect it over night and through tomorrow.

Wish the best for all in the path.

Irma is not ‘running up the state of Florida’. It’s too soon to say where it will go since it is still close to Cuba and moving in a northwesterly direction. The models providing the current predictions are the same models that have been totally wrong so far. It wasn’t so long ago these models led some to declare Irma was on a direct course for Miami. If or when it makes a turn predictions may become more accurate but at this point it’s still a guess where it will go.

Well, I guess I stand corrected. However, Irma will more than likely move up the state on the west coast. But as things do change minute by minute, my earlier assessment of it running up the state were accurate. Feel free to let the forecasters know if things change minute by minute, and their for case isn’t the case as you see it.

Do you really need to be nasty about it? For the last two days they’ve been predicting Irma would hit Florida, first the east, then up the center, and now the west. Meanwhile it continues on its northwesterly course. Have you looked at satellite photos, maps indicating pressure systems, and the National Hurricane Center’s website? I have. I have been checking multiple sources of info regularly for three days now. At the last nhc update it was still close to cuba moving nw at 6 miles an hour.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

Good luck. Sounds like you’ve done what you can to prepare. Please check in after the storm so we know everything is ok.

hope things will turn positive as IRMA reaches florida i.e goes to CAT1 maybe. heard from news earlier 650K evact but now 2million which is 1/3 of florida i realised this is serious. i saw a guy who saves his house using a $8K water dam from a 7feet water but from the news they predict IRMA could raise level to 13.5feet now not even the great water dam can save anyone’s house. i pray for you guys in florida. :frowning:

Damn, who needs the Xindi when you got Irma on a collision course with Florida…

What really sucks is that it pretty much has to hit land to weaken and eventually fizzle out, as over water it just keeps its energy if not grows stronger.

Wishing BLF members all the strength you need. In situations like these I realize how important flashlights are.

to be specific waterproof flashlight i.e X80 30 meter :+1:

I was wondering… even with a high water-table, what about something like a surplus cargo-container laid on wooden skids (to prevent paint-scraping and subsequent rusting), lash steel cable across the top and using rebar driven into the ground at an angle to hold that bugger down like a carnival tent?

Wonder how much a surplus cargo-container goes for…

If I lived down there (or Tornado Alley), first thing I’d do is build a bunker… Poured-concrete slab with embedded rebar sticking up, cinderblocks laid over the rebar, mortared together, then once the walls are built, fill the internal holes with more poured-concrete, then an I-beam and cinderblock roof to match.

May not be pretty to look at, but if it could withstand Venusian windstorms, I’d be seriously happy.

Aww, man, my best wishes are out there for all those in Florida… I get the bad feeling they’re gonna need it.

I’m 150 miles off the coast just off interstate I-75. The evacuees are coming right through here on I-75, my advice would be to fill up all your vehicle and all your gas cans. A lot of the gas stations around here are out of gas, especially the ones right on the interstate. When looking for gas don’t stop at every exit, pick one and head toward a rural area 10 or 20 miles from an interstate to find gas. Our biggest concern will be the tornadoes than spin off from the Hurricane. Good luck to everyone in the path.

Yeah she is a big one…. :frowning:

It amazes me how accurate the forcasting has been. So far it is doing pretty much exactly what was said several days ago concerning the “turn”. They just were not sure when that would be, until this morning (Saturday morning)…. it was stated it would be late Saturday nite/early Sunday morning.

The end of the Penensula is only about 85 to 90 miles wide going across 41. So the forcast has been pretty darn accurate.

She’s leaving North Coast of Cuba now.
Eye wall replacement is all but done & starting to strengthen again.
Back up to CAT4.
Pressure dropping about 2 mg/hr.

The turn started about an hour ago, steered by upper level Jet Stream.
Moving NW now for a bit & that will slowly change to N NW.

First landfall on the Peninsula will be between Marco Island & Venice.
Probably closer to Venice than Marco.

But mostly skirting the West coast now till she leaves land again above Sarasota only to landfall again around Cedar Key.

It looked like it was gonna split the Peninsula right down the middle for the longest. But heck… the thing is over 400 miles wide…. middle or west coast… it is all bad. :frowning:

I hope & pray it loses strength by some miracle very early on… right now would be just fine in fact.

I have friends hunkered down in Bonita Springs & Venice.

Anothet one who evacuated Marco Island got as far as Tarpon Springs before the gas ran out. So he is hunkered down in a hotel there.

My, my…. I sincerely hope it is not as bad as is very possible. :frowning:

Good luck to anyone affected by this monster. . :+1:

All of the hotels here are full of evacuees. Not sure if gas is out but we live several miles away from I-75 and got filled up vehicle (36 gal) yesterday, as well as 60 gallons of gas in portable gas cans. So hopefully that will keep me in gas for a while if we can’t get fuel after storm. I’ve got enough supplies of food, water etc to hunker down for a year. I hope I never have to use the supplies, but it is nice feeling of security having that available.

Good luck SubSailorVet…… hope all goes well for you & yours. :slight_smile: