
Category 5 Hurricane Irma Brings 180-MPH Winds to Bear on Caribbean Islands - jameslk
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/09/05/548606014/category-5-hurricane-irma-brings-175-mph-winds-to-bear-on-caribbean-islands
======
S_A_P
Having just lived through Harvey, I cannot stress enough that if you are in a
position to evacuate, please do so. We were lucky to narrowly escape flooding
in our home, but for 3 days we had no water, septic or power(need power for
the other 2). The flooding had us stuck in our neighborhood but we were able
to kayak out to safety. In addition to high winds(which Houston fortunately
avoided) flooding is very dangerous. Those in the path of Irma should expect
both. Again please evacuate if you can.

~~~
rdtsc
What do you think of city mayor's decision not to order a larger scale
evacuation. NYT seems to think it was absolutely (their word) the right thing
to do. Being on the ground there, would you agree?

~~~
jofer
The last time an evacuation was called for in Houston (Rita), over 100 people
died trying to evacuate before the hurricane even hit. (e.g.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Rita#Evacuation_deat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Rita#Evacuation_deaths))

In terms of life lost, evacuating would have been a disaster. You'd have had
gridlocked interstates underwater.

Mayor Turner absolutely made the right call by not evacuating. Living in
Houston, I'm probably a bit biased, but I find the criticism he's received for
making the decision not to evacuate a bit absurd.

~~~
aseipp
Agreed. I live in Austin now, but I lived in Houston before this (Ike hit
about a week after I moved to H-town, what a welcome party). Turner made
absolutely the right decision. It was very unclear until _very_ close to
landfall how powerful it was going to really be (tropical storm -> Cat 4 in
~50 hours.) That isn't enough time. For ~4 million people, like a _week_ isn't
enough time...

If a panic had ensued from an evac order? Honestly, I believe thousands would
have died from the roads flooding and being trapped in their cars. It would
have been a living nightmare, more than it already was.

(Greg Abbott, on the other hand, _did_ recommend evacuation. I can only assume
he did this because his only purpose for existence is to be a gigantic piece
of shit, and ruin people's lives in any way he can, but whatever.)

------
swasheck
I know that this is slightly off-topic so feel free to downvote if you feel so
inclined:

There's a lot of money that goes into disaster relief and recovery. I think
that's great and very worthwhile, thoughts on charity accountability
notwithstanding.

What I wonder, though, is if there are any organizations that provide pre-
relief (prelief?) for disasters. For instance, the comment in this discussion
about the airlines overbooking for flights out of the Turks made me think,
"we've known that this is a possibility for a while, could aid funds be
provided to get folks to safety in advance?" I know that there are a lot of
logistical problems to solve (where do they go? for how long will they stay?
what about their lives/livelihoods at home? how does an organization maintain
accountability with donations for a disaster that has yet to happen?)

Anyway, it's just a thought. I didn't know if such an organization existed, or
if it's even feasible.

~~~
bluGill
It isn't feasible, but the reasons are weather prediction, not economics.
Those who live in hurricane reasons are warned far enough in advance to
evacuate 10 times every year. Many years not even one hurricane turns out big
enough that an evacuation was required, and even when one does turn out that
big, that vast majority of the land that was warned is never affected.

When we can accurately predict 1 week in advance how big and where a hurricane
will land it is easy to evacuate those people over that week. However we don't
yet have enough information to do that.

People living in those areas soon learn that most hurricanes are non-events:
either they hit elsewhere, or they are small enough that their house can
safely ride it out. Either way they can go years without evacuating. When a
big one finally comes for them they don't realize until it is too late. Then
the evacuation becomes a massive traffic jam of people trying to get out in
not enough time.

Note that even if weather prediction is good enough people will take years to
undo their habit of ignoring the predictions until it is too late as they have
learned that the warnings are not worth paying attention to. (For all I know
prediction might already be good enough)

~~~
importantbrian
I live in South Florida and this nails it. My friends who have lived here a
short time are already planning to pack up and leave. My friends who have been
here for 10+ years are all just going to stay and ride it out. I think even if
they issued mandatory evacuations many of them would still not leave. They all
speak longingly of having neighborhood "hurricane parties" while they wait for
the power to come back on. They think of it as South Florida snow days. An
inconvenience at worst, a fun few days off school and work at best. They just
don't see the threat as being that serious.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
Florida native here. They must not remember Andrew. It was not fun and games.

The media plays these storms up, yes, but they really are nothing to joke
about. Even inland, as much rain as they produce, it only takes that one gust
to push over a 200 year old oak and it can destroy a house.

People should take these storms seriously. First responders' lives are put
into jeopardy because of foolishness like that.

Not trying to be all up on my soapbox here. I've just seen some stuff is all.

~~~
fma
Florida native here, too. What op is probably referring to are those who
haven't been decimated yet. I've lived in Ft.lauderdale a for a while and went
through Andrew. We evacuated inland. The place we evacuated to lost power,
where our house didn't. Ironic, isn't it.

Ft.lauderdale wasn't near the eye. It was Miami/Homestead. Anyone who has
lived in Ft.lauderdale has probably not faced a damaging hurricane. Andrew was
25 years ago. I do not recall any hurricane after that that caused as much
alarm. Just a few days off school.

~~~
lsaferite
We haven't had a major hurricane make landfall in FL in 12 years. People begin
to forget the fear and seriousness in that time.

~~~
swasheck
I grew up in Orlando and my high school gym was a shelter for those displaced
by Andrew. That stretches back quite a bit farther than 12 years, I know, but
the image of folks living in the gym has been seared into my brain. It's part
of the reason why I asked the original question.

------
rbritton
This site makes an appearance on HN somewhat regularly, but in case it's new
to anyone, it tends to be a pretty useful forecast visual for wind:
[https://www.windy.com/?25.820,-67.720,5](https://www.windy.com/?25.820,-67.720,5)

~~~
olegkikin
It's also interesting to look at the bigger picture. The southern hemisphere
has its own level of insanity going on:

[https://www.windy.com/?-22.513,39.375,3](https://www.windy.com/?-22.513,39.375,3)

~~~
rpeden
I think that's somewhat normal below 40 degrees south. Lots of open ocean
without any significant land masses to slow things down. See more here:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaring_Forties](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaring_Forties)

~~~
singularity2001
lest we forget the Furious Fifties

------
will_brown
I was 10 living in Miami during Hurricane Andrew, and I'm still here if that's
were Irma hits.

After Andrew we bought an RV and live in that outside our house for months
while our home was repaired/rebuilt; I can't recall exactly but I'd say it was
at least a month before power was restored to power refridge/deep freezer; for
months my elementary school was shared with another school that was destroyed
(we had half days); houses literally had "looters will be shot" spray painted
on them; eventually national guard began patrolling the neighborhood for a
couple months; it wasn't unusual for kids at school to be living off military
MREs (meals ready to eat). And we always considered ourselves lucky.

------
leggomylibro
Oof. This is ramping up to be quite the hurricane/monsoon season.

I don't know much about meteorology, so I'll post this without comment besides
the article's subject; maybe someone else can make an informed value
judgement. But apparently as global temperatures rise, the atmosphere is going
to be able to hold a lot more water:

[https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/08/the-
stra...](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/08/the-strange-
future-hurricane-harvey-portends/538557/)

~~~
idlewords
Cliff Mass (whose blog is really worth following) points out that this is not
an abnormal hurricane season by historical standards. There is not a big
temperature anomaly in the waters fueling these storms:
[http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2017/08/global-warming-and-
hur...](http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2017/08/global-warming-and-hurricane-
harvey.html)

In other words, this is the kind of storm season you can expect to get once in
a while even before factoring in the effect of warming seas.

~~~
cryptoz
Please note that the Cliff Mass blog post you linked to is not about the
hurricane discussed here. Also note that your summary of his post ("this is
not an abnormal hurricane season by historical standards") is misleading as
that is not the topic or conclusion of that piece.

~~~
idlewords
Look at the weekly SST temperature anomaly along Irma's track and you'll see
the argument carries over.

------
lugg
Been watching this for a few days with /r/tropicalweather. Amazing to watch.

This site[1] has some really good info and daily videos with the rundown of
the latest forecast

[1] [https://www.tropicaltidbits.com](https://www.tropicaltidbits.com)

~~~
Jazonk
It's also pretty fascinating to look at the Satellite images. Here you can
check out the latest from the hi-res GOES-16. It's insane to see the scale of
the hurricane, all told.

[http://rammb-slider.cira.colostate.edu/](http://rammb-
slider.cira.colostate.edu/)

~~~
piceas
They have a nice loop of Irma's eye.

2017/09/05 - A closeup look at Hurricane Irma's eye via 1-min Band 2

[http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/ramsdis/online/loop_of_the_d...](http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/ramsdis/online/loop_of_the_day/)

mp4 link:
[http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/ramsdis/online/images/loop_o...](http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/ramsdis/online/images/loop_of_the_day/goes-16/20170905000000/video/20170905000000_irma6.mp4)

------
ftxrcc
As a Puerto Rican preparing for Irma, yes, we're pretty freaked.

~~~
singularity2001
chances are you will just be saved :
[https://earth.nullschool.net/#2017/09/07/0000Z/wind/isobaric...](https://earth.nullschool.net/#2017/09/07/0000Z/wind/isobaric/1000hPa/orthographic=-60.02,16.20,3000/loc=-64.437,18.539)

~~~
ftxrcc
It was expected to go north today. Unfortunately, all models were wrong and it
actually is coming much faster to our direction, and it keeps getting
stronger. I'm legitimately scared.

~~~
rovr138
We all are.

I’m in Guaynabo. Not close to the coast, so I didn’t have to evacuate.

Came down for the weekend, stayed because of the hurricane...

Be safe!

------
outoftacos
Hurricanes rotate counter clockwise, so the highest wind speeds and storm
surge tend to occur to the "right" or on the east/southeast side of the eye
path. Currently Miami looks to be right in the center of this danger zone, so
just get out now while you still can.

Yes it's a few days out and they can and usually do veer off, but this one is
not worth riding out.

~~~
zeep
a hard steer to the right would be nice... but many of them do a slow steer
and would get me right in it... [http://www.stuartflelectrician.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/1...](http://www.stuartflelectrician.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/12/hurricane-paths.png)

~~~
zeep
some spaghetti models predict a pretty hard right steer, but a little too
late....
[http://derecho.math.uwm.edu/models/al112017.png](http://derecho.math.uwm.edu/models/al112017.png)

------
ars
I remember reading a few days ago that European models were predicting a turn
to the north, and US models were predicting a high pressure ridge holding the
hurricane to the west.

Anyone know more about this?

Because if true, it's the second time European models were more correct than
American ones. Last time they decided we needed more supercomputing power, and
they got it. Did it help?

~~~
mikeyouse
> Last time they decided we needed more supercomputing power, and they got it.
> Did it help?

Per a few sources I've seen, no, it didn't. One big cause of the GFS (USA)
model's inaccuracy is lack the of computing power, which we've addressed a few
times with new supercomputing clusters.

The bigger problem is that the GFS model uses bad underlying physics. Decades
ago we made several choices to optimize around the current architecture and
processing ability, which was probably okay in the mid 1990s. Today, it just
results in greatly inferior predictive ability compared to the European
models. When you combine the poor model physics with lower resolution compared
to the competitors, it becomes clear that we need to reboot the whole thing.

[https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2016/06/us-numerical-
weather-...](https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2016/06/us-numerical-weather-
prediction-is.html)

~~~
yourapostasy
Thank you very much for pointing this out, TIL. To save others the time to
look up which model the US National Weather Service (NWS) chose, they selected
the [1] Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab (GFDL) FV-3, which the author of the
linked blog article above was opposed to. The US has a "weather modeling gap",
which is surprising to me, because of the economic (many futures contracts
move on forecasts, though many of the forecasting used by financial firms is
increasingly from private sources), public policy, and military applications.

[1] [http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-national-
weather-s...](http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-national-weather-
service-moves-to.html)

------
erobbins
I have been through 5 hurricanes in south florida, and always stayed put.
Wilma was a strong 2/weak 3, and it was no joke. Afterwards there were trees
uprooted everywhere, concrete power poles snapped like toothpicks. This
storm's winds have 2.5x the energy of Wilma's currently.

I would GTFO for this one, it looks really bad.

~~~
MaxScheiber
I second this. Wilma's eye passed over us, which was my first time ever
experiencing the eye wall of a hurricane. I vividly remember watching our
house's patio enclosure get destroyed from my parents' bedroom.

I wouldn't stick around for this one if I were still in Florida.

------
brianbreslin
For those following storms I recommend two sites:
[http://spaghettimodels.com/](http://spaghettimodels.com/) and
[http://www.stormpulse.com](http://www.stormpulse.com)

------
mikesickler
As the models are updated, I'm starting to get more and more concerned about
Tampa Bay:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/health/environm...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/health/environment/tampa-
bay-climate-change/?utm_term=.3ca651d0fb2a)

------
jason_slack
Windy.com is pretty fun to use! But I have to ask something....

Irma is 180mph. Scroll the Windy.com map to between South America and
Antartica. Is that really 330mph winds?

[https://www.windy.com/?-63.273,-79.277,3,m:YTadQA](https://www.windy.com/?-63.273,-79.277,3,m:YTadQA)

screenshot, just in case:
[https://imgur.com/a/Jm2ir](https://imgur.com/a/Jm2ir)

Still looking at Windy.com, Alaska is getting hit with 150mph winds right now.
I haven't heard about that, but Irma is huge news on the back of Harvey. I
guess I might be sheltered a bit. I seldom think about the weather much.

~~~
razster
You're looking at kt, knots, so roughly 45+mph winds.
[http://imgur.com/a/7sIIU](http://imgur.com/a/7sIIU)

~~~
jason_slack
ah, that explains a lot! Thank you for clarifying.

------
joezydeco
I've got a Christmas vacation booked in Providenciales and I give it a 50/50
chance the VRBO I booked will still be there.

People are trying to get off Grand Turk as fast as they can. The airlines have
overbooked outbound flights and the airport is closing on Thursday for 48
hours. I'm hoping the damage is minimal. outoftacos mentions that eastern
sides of the islands take more of a hit which gives some solace here.

------
DarkTree
You can see a visualization of the approaching hurricane here:
[https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/ort...](https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-62.10,15.50,976/loc=-51.028,21.881)

------
Sandorie
I was born and raised in Cuba. I lived through Katrina, Wilma, and many others
(while in cuba). For the most part, everytime theres any climate discrepancy
the primate part of the brain activates -chaos and disorganization arise-
Which is, in part related to the amount of casualties. Key things to do: -keep
calm -seek higher ground -gather dry food, and non-perishable food (nuts, dry
meat, canned fish, etc) -water -detachment of any material things. (Countless
lives have been lost because people refuse to let go of their belongings)
-dont wait until the last minute to take action.

In Cuba we didn't have nearly a quarter of the resources available in the U.S.
We managed to minimize casualties because we kept our cool and didnt give in
into despair.

~~~
rovr138
> We managed to minimize casualties because we kept our cool and didnt give in
> into despair.

It’s been a shit show in Puerto Rico the last couple of days.

~~~
Sandorie
I can only imagine. Stay safe out there

------
Xoros
Winds started here in Guadeloupe. The sea is bumpy but not that much. Waiting
for the night to come to see that will be.

Big thoughts for all those who will be less lucky than us.

~~~
rovr138
You safe? Any updates? How’s it been?

Expecting it here today/tonight (Puerto Rico)

~~~
Xoros
Thank for asking. Guadeloupe Island is now safe, without major damages, but
the French northern islands (St Martin and St Barthélémy) have been heavily
impacted.

Don't have much news by now, but I saw video feeds that were very concerning.

Stay safe, I wish you the best. And tell us if you're ok tomorrow.

------
nickgravel
I live in the Turks and Caicos Islands (Providenciales). We were lucky
hurricane Matthew missed us last year, I suspect however that we won't be so
lucky with Irma.

It's worrisome to say the least.

~~~
idlewords
Good luck out there, and stay safe.

------
0xCMP
I already bought my flight out of South Florida. The worst should be over by
the time it reaches Alabama so I figure anywhere NE/MW is good to hold out.

------
ransom1538
I am (was) in FL. I fled the state. I pray it doesn't hit texas again, in FL
we can at least take a huge hit.

------
Aron
I got a question! What sets the upper bound of ~185mph on hurricanes?

------
dsfyu404ed
I really need to fill up my truck before there's another post hurricane price
hike.

~~~
drewmol
I think the price hike is mainly due to decreased refining capacity, I doubt a
hurricane in Miami/SF would have the same effect.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
IIRC there's a some refining capacity in NC/SC, also the oil companies know
that not everyone knows where there is and isn't refining capacity.

