Time for a Public Service Announcement
(Image and links via the Drudge Report)
This is not a joke. If you’re in the path of this hurricane your life is in danger. This isn’t an excuse for a party. This isn’t an opportunity to test your preps. If you are in the area that takes a direct hit from Hurricane Irma, this is Armageddon.
If you’re in the maybe 100 mile wide path of the worst winds, this is a storm with winds like an EF4 tornado that will go on for hours. Unless you happen to have a concrete and steel-reinforced tornado shelter, you probably won’t be around for the full experience, because there is a very good chance you will be DEAD. Feel free to write your name and Social Security Number on your arm with a Sharpie. They might find your body.
185 MPH winds are not something to trifle with. These are images of what an EF4 tornado does. Imagine that sort of wind when it has a few hours to do its work. This thing is showing up on seismographs. This is not something to fuck with.
If you’re near the coast where Irma makes landfall, you’re also going to get the Storm Surge From Hell. I don’t want to think of how much water 185 MPH winds can pile up. I suspect it will be epic. Add in flooding rains, and the damage from water will add insult to injury.
This is one of those situations where the best thing to do is bug out. Get your family, your valuables, your critters and put 500 miles between you and this bitch. Watch it on TV.
As of this writing, it looks like Florida, starting with the Keys, is the target zone. Irma is going to monster walk right up the peninsula and then barrel up the East Coast in some form or fashion. I’m starting to make my preparations, basing this on storms like Hurricane Hugo, which have come inland, still packing a considerable punch. If we take a hit, it will be bad, but nothing like Florida.
You folks in Florida still have days to make your move. Make the right one. Leave.
Edit, 9/6/2017, 1520: The 5 PM track update has Irma taking a harder turn to the north than this morning. If this track holds. it’s a good thing for Florida and a bad thing for those of us further north. Of course, we are talking about a weather forecast for 4-5 days out, so this is only somewhat better than reading chicken bones. The change doesn’t make me change my advice one whit, but it does make me expand it further north. Now folks in the Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina coastal areas, as well as those as far as 100-150 miles inland are in the bulls eye. Maybe we’ll get lucky and the turn will just keep on increasing and Irma will head out into the Atlantic and scare the fishes.