hurricane Irma - Florida about to get slammed?

As of 2 PM EST Irma is currently a three.

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

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCPAT1 shtml/091745.shtml

"Maximum sustained winds are near 125 mph (205 km/h) with higher
gusts. Irma is a category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson
Hurricane Wind Scale. Irma is forecast to restrengthen once it
moves away from Cuba, and Irma is expected to remain a powerful
hurricane as it approaches Florida."

Irma is expected to bump back up to a four and possibly a five as Irma moves further north from Cuba.

I'm on the roads here in broward. Wind has been slowly picking up, haven't had to much rain yet. Just some quick showers as a band blows through here and there. Thankfully the roads have been slowly clearing, there were quite a few people on the road earlier, seems to be dying down now.

Irma might top off her gas tank when she passes over the water of the "Florida straits" whatever those are, boosting her back into the next category. I have Monday off because Fort Gordon will be closed to take care of hurricane evacuees or whatever. Thus it's a "mission essential personnel" situation so I have to take Monday off since all my customers will be off too.

we need a hurricane dayton and diacanu and tyrion.

so, are we having fun yet?

seriously, best of luck to everybody in the storm's path.

Insert obligatory "just like my penis" joke here.

I would have gone with:

Your mom goes up and down with intensity.

We have a hurricane Dayton nearly daily, he destroys threats all of the time.

See Hurricane Irma Crackle with Lightning in Electrifying Satellite Video

Florida gun owners encouraged to 'shoot the storm' and fire their guns at Hurricane Irma

Ok, maybe some floriduh people dying is not a bad thing.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/florida-gun-owners-encouraged-apos-213111921.html

As you can see some people are planning to shoot their guns at the storm in frustration. Is it official that floriduh is stoopidur than tex-ass yet?

I see its now projected to travel up the west coast of Florida. I spent a week in Clearwater Beach and Sarasota last year, shame.

Whilst you dont want it to hit anywhere populated, would it really be so bad to hit Miami South Beach? Its not as if the residents cant afford to fix the damage. Those big mansions on Star island might get fucked over. Obviously theres other parts of Miami where normal non millionaires live which wouldnt be good.

Have we got any Wordforgers in the path? @Zombie and @Tererun i believe are Florida? Stay safe.

ya think?

You completely forget that directly to the west of Star Island and South Beach are some of the poorest parts of Miami.

Allapattah, Brownsville, Overtown, Little Havana, Little Haiti among others.

And when I say directly to the west I'm talking less then 1 mile to 5 miles max from Star Island.

And that's just near Star Island. Don't forget all the other non-millionaire areas of Dade County and Broward County.

Obviously, which is essentially what i was saying. I have been to Miami and i have seen how quickly you go from super wealth to normal or deprived neighbourhoods.

All i was meaning, even if it didnt come across that way is that wrap south beach in its own bubble, id rather see it hit there than half developed islands in the Carribean.

I did read an article on bbc yesterday that suggests construction companies in Miami have gambled, leaving cranes fully intact so thet could be working a few days up till evacuation. Suggestions some of these cranes are going to be causing crazy damage as Irma hits.

Its not gonna be pretty.

Flickef over to CNN. Theyv got some hurricane reported on one of the keys. The got was reporting live, roped in. What struck me was he reeled through all the big hurricanes he's reported from and he said that this is the most violent one he's seen.

Key West underwater.

About the only time I wish Kanye West had shown up instead.

It takes way too long to take them down. It's not something that can be done quickly.

A crane can take up to two weeks to dismantle. It's not just that you take the crane down on the site. You also have to block the streets around the crane. Some of the counterweights on the cranes weigh up to 20,000 lbs. You don't want to drop that on someone driving on the street. It would definitely be a quick death though. Nor do you want to black off the whole city preventing people from moving around. There's dozens of cranes up. You could paralyze a city if you took them all down at the same time.

And this storms track has been all over the place. A few days ago the eye of the hurricane was forecasted to hit Miami-Dade. Than a day or two after that it was supposed to hit Miami-Dade go north into Broward and than go up the east coast of Florida and into Georgia and the Carolinas.

Now it's hitting Key West and is forecasted to go up the west coast of Florida into Ft. Myers and Tampa. For all we know it will turn slightly more west and hit Houston Texas!

So what are the construction sites to do? Take down a crane every time a hurricane rears it's head?

Where most of the cranes are located in the county is already under evacuation orders so no one in their right mind should be the area anyway.

Key West reported sustained winds of 71mph and a gust of 91mph.

Miami weather service has said winds of up to 100mph and warns to stay away from windows.

I remember reading back during the Apollo program that Hans & Franz the two giant rocket crawler transporters at Kennedy Space Center were always available in case of a hurricane to "rush" (rush being relative) a Saturn V rocket from the pad back to the Vehicle Assembly Building in case of a hurricane.

Don't know if this was ever done for a Saturn V or a Shuttle Stack. I suppose at 1 mph it would take the crawler about seven hours or more to travel to the pad, move under the platform, jack it up and get back to the VAB.

Power flickering. Unplugged computer to protect it. Using mind powers to make this post.

Thank God for smartphones.

You might struggle there then!

Good luck, hope it doesnt hit too hard

Construction cranes in that part of the US must be built to withstand 140mph winds. These standards were put into place after Andrew in 92.

Im not a construction expert. This article suggests things could be done differently....


The deadly danger from Miami's ubiquitous cranes - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41207917

If more than 145mph winds (233KPH) hit miami, the construction cranes are the least of their worries. No, it's not going to be that bad there, but Naples, Fort Myers will see in excess of 120mph winds.

One crane is down. Fell on the building it is on.

Others are spinning like tops. Video shows them spinning.

That owner will have some 'splainin to do.

Others are not spinning like tops. One turned, sorta like a weather vane. link

My niece works at a thoroughbred horse breeder in Ocala, and she has to stay to mind the horses.
Here's a pic of the highway next to their property yesterday:

CNN said they got a wind gust of 131mph in Key West before the measuring equipment broke.