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First Hand Experience of Hurricane Irma

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    Solidgone said:

    Peter - if it's possible, you could contact the BBC and give real time experiences of the hurricane and see how many times you can mention Charlton life as your solace?
    Stay safe.

    I mean it's better than saying "starchy snacks and alcohol got me through this" like everyone else.

    I was up on and off through the night watching video feeds. I finally made myself close all the tabs. Irma is just starting to really hit Tampa where my friends are holed up.

    Hope all your loved ones are safe.
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    Just been downgraded to a Cat 3 hurricane with 120mph max winds. Still hold onto your seat belts though people.
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    Big flood event this.

    Hope you doing okay Peter, and I'm thinking of your MoL Nug. The west coast is going to get the worst of the surge as the the wind has moved more out to sea.
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    For the insurance people amongst us and for those interested.

    Each Lloyds syndicate has to regularly stress test their potential Catastrophic losses to the Lloyds Franchise Board. This has to be a prudent, data backed worst case loss scenario. Interestingly the total Lloyds Realistic Disaster Scenario (RDS) exposure to a Florida Gulf Coast wind/flood/storm surge event is $134bn, more than a worst case Miami-Dade loss scenario.

    Probably because more of the south east FL homeowner market is tucked away domestically or with alternative capital markets. Anyway Miami was designated the black swan, but a gulf coast event is still huge in insurance terms.

    Nothing compared to loss of lives obviously.
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    For the insurance people amongst us and for those interested.

    Each Lloyds syndicate has to regularly stress test their potential Catastrophic losses to the Lloyds Franchise Board. This has to be a prudent, data backed worst case loss scenario. Interestingly the total Lloyds Realistic Disaster Scenario (RDS) exposure to a Florida Gulf Coast wind/flood/storm surge event is $134bn, more than a worst case Miami-Dade loss scenario.

    Probably because more of the south east FL homeowner market is tucked away domestically or with alternative capital markets. Anyway Miami was designated the black swan, but a gulf coast event is still huge in insurance terms.

    Nothing compared to loss of lives obviously.

    Who'd you work for CA?
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    Big flood event this.

    Hope you doing okay Peter, and I'm thinking of your MoL Nug. The west coast is going to get the worst of the surge as the the wind has moved more out to sea.

    Thanks CA, we spoke to her about an hour ago, she's okay so far although ground floor is already flooding and the eye won't hit them for another hour or so. BoL and his wife decided to stay in his shipping container in his garden...not sure that was a smart move myself but what do I know. Fingers crossed for everyone. Hope your place avoids damage.
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    When I lived in Florida I worked for a Florida based property insurance company. I don't know a ton about insurance, especially global markets, but what I can say is at the local level these storms are devasting and result in millions in claims being paid out (I think we did reinsurance with Lloyd's).

    I'm going out for a jog because me sitting here watching CNN isn't helping anything other than putting my nerves on edge. Thinking of your MoL in Naples Nug. It seems they're up next.
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    Apparently the border of Georgia and SC are also feeling the effects too with high winds and rising sea levels.
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    Jeez @Nug cany think of anything more terrifying than being holed up in a shipping container with no power!
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    Just been watching CNN showing Naples getting battered. Calmed down now as the eye goes over it but starts again in about 20 minutes as the other side comes through and water is pouring inland flooding eveywhere. BiL says he's okay in shipping container.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7M21SJSs308
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    Been watching The Weather Channel all night, seems that it might have made landfall as a Cat 4 Hurricane, Naples is getting absolutely pounded! Miami still getting continuous gusts of 100mph too, this is a huge storm
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    Thoughts with your relations @Nug and hoping to hear @PeterGage is OK soon too. Terrifying stuff.
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    Nug said:

    Just been watching CNN showing Naples getting battered. Calmed down now as the eye goes over it but starts again in about 20 minutes as the other side comes through and water is pouring inland flooding eveywhere. BiL says he's okay in shipping container.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7M21SJSs308

    Genuinely one of the strangest sentences I've ever seen.

    (hopefully goes without saying that I'm glad he's alright, and a shipping container is actually pretty genius because they're incredibly sturdy, no glass, etc.)
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    With it being downgraded, is Harvey now the technically 'worse' hurricane, strictly talking magnitude and not actual human/ infrastructural damage.
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    edited September 2017

    With it being downgraded, is Harvey now the technically 'worse' hurricane, strictly talking magnitude and not actual human/ infrastructural damage.

    Just had a quick look and Harvey was a Cat 4 when it hit land, so yes technically it was worse. That said, it's fine margins and I think wind speeds were 130mph for Harvey, and as of earlier it was about 125mph for Irma. More importantly, Harvey first hit land in areas that weren't nearly as densely populated as the Florida coast.

    If there is a positive in all of this, it's hopefully hopefully hopefully that Florida is much better prepared for hurricanes as opposed to, say, Houston. That goes for everything from the way development is done to the preparedness of individuals. There was also a lot more warning with Irma than with Harvey.
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    With it being downgraded, is Harvey now the technically 'worse' hurricane, strictly talking magnitude and not actual human/ infrastructural damage.

    I don’t think so, purely because of the sheer size of it. Still have the storm surge too which is yet to peak
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    Feeling rather nervous for Anna Maria Island. It's a beautiful little place, just west of Bradenton, and it's bang under it now. Places built in the 30 last 30 years or so are up on concrete stilts, but the older places are going to take a pounding at beach level. Thankfully news reports suggest the entire island has been evacuated.
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    With it being downgraded, is Harvey now the technically 'worse' hurricane, strictly talking magnitude and not actual human/ infrastructural damage.

    Irma is a much larger storm, and as @SDAddick said Florida has a lot more densely populated towns and cities it crossed over. Houston is a mess though.

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    edited September 2017

    With it being downgraded, is Harvey now the technically 'worse' hurricane, strictly talking magnitude and not actual human/ infrastructural damage.

    Irma is a much larger storm, and as @SDAddick said Florida has a lot more densely populated towns and cities it crossed over. Houston is a mess though.

    Yeah Houston, for various reasons that we can go into later, was not designed to withstand hurricanes/huge storms.

    Curious as to how Peter and Nug's family are doing. It looks like Miami and Naples have both taken a real beating.

    I went out for a bit so I haven't been following things quite as closely, but it seems that because it's such a slow moving storm it's dissipating faster than expected. It's down to a Cat 2 and my friend tells me it might well be a Cat 1 by the time it hits Tampa. She has been through Cat 2 storms and she said while it's really ugly, it's very much survivable. It also sounds like the storm surge is going to be lower than was expected, at least up the west coast.

    Also, just seen a report and it seems like the storm might be projected to move more easterly than was once expected. The bad news is that means it will hit more of Florida, particularly central Florida and the east coast. But the "good news" is that if ends up spending more time over Florida it will dissipate faster as opposed to hugging the coast where it could continue to gain at least some strength from the ocean. A more easterly trajectory would weaken it significantly by the time it moves into Georgia and Tennessee and Kentucky. At one point it was forecasted that it could still have tropical storm force winds when it hit Atlanta, a huge metropolis which I don't think is used to getting hurricanes/tropical storms.

    Again, thoughts for everyone and their loved ones.
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    @SDAddick - Hurricanes are survivable if there is good construction, common sense and quick relief. It's why Bermuda shrugs it off but Haiti is an unmitigated disaster everytime a storm comes.

    Atlanta would have been a nightmare. Do you remember when it snowed there a couple of years ago SD?
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    @SDAddick - Hurricanes are survivable if there is good construction, common sense and quick relief. It's why Bermuda shrugs it off but Haiti is an unmitigated disaster everytime a storm comes.

    Atlanta would have been a nightmare. Do you remember when it snowed there a couple of years ago SD?

    Yeah a good point, survivable was meant to meant more of "cities and infrastructures, as well as people, will largely remain in tact."

    Yeah I do remember the snow. I used to work for Georgia Tech Research Institute in Atlanta and have a lot of friends there and people were losing their shit. Atlanta seems to be a city a lot like LA where it's hugely spread out, and any bit of bad weather fucks the traffic which is already shit.
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    When this loss reaches the reinsurance market the original amount is multiplied as original insurers claim from the reinsurers, who in turn claim from their reinsurers, who in turn claim..............and on it goes.
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    edited September 2017
    So it's 23:40 Eastern time, 20:40 here on the west coast. Here's what I know--just wanted to give updates for people as they wake up.

    Lots of caveats, I'm not an expert, I'm just going on what I'm seeing on telly (to their credit CNN has done some excellent reporting), what I'm hearing from friends, and what I'm reading. "Florida Storms" on Facebook and Twitter provides great insights into the weather. And for a lot of places, like Naples and Miami, let alone the Keys, we don't really know how they're doing because the heart of the storms has just passed over them, and they're still at a risk of storm surge. Lastly, we don't really know what's happened on the ground yet, so we're still to see what it has left in its path.

    Right now it's a Cat 2, if the winds drop another 5mph it'll be down to a Cat 1 (though that's semantics). The eye of the storm has dissipated. That is really good news because it means that the storm has weakened significantly AND that means that the storm surge predictions have lowered considerably, and hopefully places like Miami and Naples have been spared the worst of the storm surge. The mayor of Naples was on CNN a little earlier and he said that they'd really dodged a bullet. That said, the entire city is still without power (thoughts with you and your family nug).

    The heart of the storm is sitting inland, just south of Tampa, east of Clearwater. It's about to really hit Tampa, but the heart of the storm is going to hit much further inland than was expected even 12 hours ago. My friend was saying that on Thursday/Friday it was predicted that it would be a Cat 4 direct hit on Tampa Bay. That would have incredibly devastating.

    It's a fast moving storm which it good because it doesn't hover over an area, unlike Harvey which sort of sat over Texas for days. It also means that emergency services and repair crews will hopefully be able to get out first thing tomorrow morning everywhere from Miami to Tampa.

    The down side is that, well, this is still shit. And the worst is still to come for the Tampa area, which is a big city. Also, the east coast has taken more of a battering than anticipated. And there are still tornado warnings on and off there. There are millions without power, and they will be without power for days, if not weeks. Just right now 35% of the state is without power, and that's going to go up as the worst parts hit Tampa and Orlando. People will lose everything they have. Their homes will be destroyed. This will be catastrophic, and I don't want my relativist slight positivity to overshadow that.

    We'll see what the next few hours bring as the storm passes through Tampa and skirts Gainesville and continues along the west coast. Melbourne and Orlando and Jax will probably get hit harder than expected, but hopefully they'll be spared tornados. Also, looking out to Monday the forecast has the heart of the storm missing Atlanta entirely--which is really good. Worth noting we're just talking about the US here, we still don't know the extent of the damage in the Caribbean, and it hit Cuba straight on.

    For whatever it's worth, and I say this with the worst still to come for my friends and without knowing how Peter or Nug's family are doing, if you'd offered me this forecast at midday I would have taken it, let alone Wed-Fri. There is still going to be a lot of damage, a lot of people without power, and almost certainly fatalities. But right now it looks like things could have been much, much worse.

    Hope everyone and their loved ones are okay.
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    JVL said:

    Feeling rather nervous for Anna Maria Island. It's a beautiful little place, just west of Bradenton, and it's bang under it now. Places built in the 30 last 30 years or so are up on concrete stilts, but the older places are going to take a pounding at beach level. Thankfully news reports suggest the entire island has been evacuated.

    Got married there. Lovely island.
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    Meant to be flying out to Orlando Saturday for two weeks around the parks, could be interesting.
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    Meant to be flying out to Orlando Saturday for two weeks around the parks, could be interesting.

    Cancel.
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    Looks terrible on the weather news. Hoping to hear positive news from @PeterGage and @Nug this morning.
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