Quote:
Originally Posted by soopaman2
Stealhead 
I feel bad whining about a hurricane to guys from down south. Florida gets these all the time.
We up here are vulnerable due to our coastline shape. Yeah making excuses. Storm surge, and winds killed us, the rain was kinda unimpressive.
They are calling it superstorm sandy in the media, due to the fact it was subtropical when it creamed us. 90 mph winds? Subtropical? Your the weatherman, not me
But still second behind Katrina in damage caused ($)
Except we evacuated when told to do so, unlike Katrina. |
After Andrew back in 92(or 93) which devastated much of south Florida including an Air Force base the state began to require much stricter building codes and in many coastal counties in the southern part of the state have even stricter standards.
Now the issue of coastlines and how close we like to build to the water is another issue though nature has that buffer zone for a reason after all.
Hopefully things will be learned from Sandy.
Hindsight is better than foresight when it comes to Katrina the last storm of that scale was Andrew and it hit Florida and after Andrew crying wolf became a bit common.Katrina wound up being very bad especially in Mississippi where they got the full force and in New Orleans what screwed them was infrastructure that was not able to handle what it faced.Another issue for New Orleans was that many people there do not own a car down that way and there was not really adequate means for these people to leave even if they wanted to.You must also remember that the last serious hurricane to hit N.O. before Katrina was way back in the 60's and people tend to forget things after a while.
It is odd how some regions just dodge a bullet take the North Atlantic coast of Florida from St. Augustine to Jacksonville on up into Southern Georgia that region has never been hit by a hurricane in recorded history.I think they have come in near or a little above Savannah but never lower until you get past St. Augustine.
Post Katrina everyone saw what can happen and now warnings tend to be taken much more seriously.though as you yourself said you where not really prepared well enough.
Wind speed does not have to get that high to cause damage either even a steady 60mph wind over several hours can do a good bit of damage.Then you have the surge near the coast which is in my opinion the real killer.Further inland in most cases is where you get more rain.Back in 2004 we had tons of rain and that is what took down most trees all the water weighing them down combined with the winds it was just too much for the root system and the tree would just flop over.
The worst part for me was Charley which had strong winds and tons of rain around 2:00 in the morning(I cant sleep during hurricane I assume most people cant) I could hear this very loud wind but it did not make the same sound as what a tornado is supposed to make it was a really creepy noise like the start of doomsday or something.Before I could really react it went away.
Next day I looked across the road from my house into this patch of pine forest right in the middle of it was a 80 wide circle like a giant fist had punched down all the trees it looked like a mini-Tunguska (place in Siberia not the AAA vehicle).It was something and what ever that was it must have been the loud noise I had heard good thing it was not right over a home when it happened.