Living in a Hurricane Zone when the media goes crazy

"SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie" (sidewaysondirt) 08/31/2015 at 07:29 • Filed to: not news, hurricanes

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...this is pretty much how I feel every time it’s less than a Cat 3, and that’s living 5 1/2 feet above sea level on water. I mean, I don’t think it even became a hurricane at all at any point.

Sorry, you ran out of news, CNN. Erika wasn’t it. Yes, it killed a bunch of people in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, but that’s pretty much every weather event there. I’m pretty sure they’d find about as many people who died of heat stroke on any given day as they do when a hurricane hits. Now bracing for the same kind of rain we get all summer every summer. I’ve also attached a picture of the destruction Florida is experiencing for those of you who want to know.

spanfucker retire bitch > SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie 08/31/2015 at 07:41

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Reminds me of all the hyping up the news media did for the “MAJOR FUCKING HUGE-ASS SNOW STORM” that was going to hit New York City, like a week after Buffalo got prounded with 7 feet of snow.

They got a couple of inches.

Wheelerguy > SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie 08/31/2015 at 07:49

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Poor you (laughs like Clarkson and May whenever Hammond breaks down). Our media doesn’t overdo most storm news, but that’s largely because one, we get Cat 3 to Cat 5 storms more often than you and two, the monsoon POURS here. Pretty sure you’ve seen the devastation that’s usually reported after a big storm hits a piece of the Philippines on Twitter.

LongbowMkII > SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie 08/31/2015 at 07:50

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the weather media has been awful about overselling things for the past 10 or so years

Just give me my local forecast on the 8’s *shakes fist*

SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie > spanfucker retire bitch 08/31/2015 at 07:54

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Weren’t they actually expecting the snow up there, though? Everyone in Florida except for Rick Scott knew that this was going to be either a bit of rain or a complete miss. I mean, yeah, there will be some flooding in low-lying areas, but they’re areas that have a tendency to flood all of the time just due to rain in general. The Southern parts of the peninsula are extremely low lying and surrounded by swamp. That’s part of the reason for old-school Florida architecture featuring buildings built a foot or so off the ground.

DoYouEvenShift > SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie 08/31/2015 at 07:59

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This is my first hurrican season living in FL. So I didnt know what to expect really. If it wasnt for the media, I would of never know anything different had happened. Just the regular sunny-rain-sunny-rain weather like normal.

SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie > LongbowMkII 08/31/2015 at 07:59

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Yeah, my locals are actually pretty great because of the experience of seeing how weather systems work here all of the time. We’re in kind of a weird spot. I’m convinced that our local weathermen actually managed to save lives during Hurricane Charley. Every source except for them were saying that it was going to hit either Tampa or a bit north in the panhandle. Our locals were breaking with the NOAA and everyone saying that it was going to be a direct hit for us down in SW Florida, and they nailed it with hours or warning. The NOAA didn’t even recognize the change until it was practically making landfall and turning Cayo Costa into two islands.

BigBlock440 > spanfucker retire bitch 08/31/2015 at 08:05

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NYC only got missed by a couple of miles though, 20 iirc. So it was very possible they could have got much more than a couple inches. Didn’t areas directly north get 30+ inches in that storm?

SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie > DoYouEvenShift 08/31/2015 at 08:07

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Lol, yep. You’ll know when it’s going to be one that matters because it becomes local news and people who have been here for the real thing start getting ready. Depending on where you are and the angle it’s likely to hit at, when you hear that all of the grocery stores are out of basic supplies like water, you might want to seek higher ground. Unless the storm’s massive or you have alot of tall trees in soft sand, the wind isn’t really what you need to worry about as much as the storm surge. I’ve stayed at home without even taping up the windows in Cat 3s before because it was going to hit in a way that I don’t need to worry about the surge.

SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie > Wheelerguy 08/31/2015 at 08:09

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Yeah, it’s really just the national media. Local news knows when it’s legit. I’m just sick of hearing from worried people from other states when it’s such a nothing storm.

DoYouEvenShift > SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie 08/31/2015 at 08:12

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Im in Central FL, from what I hear its not that bad here. But Ill keep a closer eye on the local news next time around. I lived in TX tornado alley my whole life so Im used to having deal with shitty weather.

Santiago of Escuderia Boricua > SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie 08/31/2015 at 08:18

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Yeah when I lived in Miami they wouldn’t even cancel school for less than a category 3 or 4

SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie > DoYouEvenShift 08/31/2015 at 08:25

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Yeah, it’s probably not going to be as bad for you. There will probably be localized flooding in places where drainage is insufficient or because of debris clogging the storm drains, but on the whole, I don’t think you have too much to worry about in Central Florida. Florida Man is a much greater concern there.

SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie > Santiago of Escuderia Boricua 08/31/2015 at 08:27

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Yep, no point. Depending on the neighborhood, the kids might be safer at school than in their house in a storm.

Santiago of Escuderia Boricua > SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie 08/31/2015 at 08:29

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Probably. I remember most of my schools being built like prisons. No windows to make shrapnel

Mercedes Streeter > SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie 08/31/2015 at 08:30

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Conversely, this is why I love Chicago. Small storms are hyped more than the latest Apple product, and actual big storms are almost always completely ignored.

DoYouEvenShift > SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie 08/31/2015 at 08:30

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Florida man. What is that?

SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie > DoYouEvenShift 08/31/2015 at 08:34

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The world’s worst super hero.

DoYouEvenShift > DoYouEvenShift 08/31/2015 at 08:43

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Oh that, yeah lol, Ive seen some of that. Never a dull moment.

spanfucker retire bitch > SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie 08/31/2015 at 08:47

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They were. But the difference is, even after the snowstorm missed them, they still put people to drive along on the streets to talk about “how bad it is” out there. Even though you could literally look at the views from the camera vans and see just a couple of inches of snow on the ground.

They never stopped trying to hype the storm, even after they knew well and good that it missed them. It was pathetic.

SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie > spanfucker retire bitch 08/31/2015 at 09:00

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Lol, so they didn’t just drop the story? At least with Erika, once it dissippated it was never mentioned again, though Florida’s keeping the state of emergency in place because Rick Scott’s an idiot. I was trying to look up something on it yesterday just to double check that it was going to be absolutely nothing instead of just minimal because we have Hurricane plans and coverage in events like this (hospital system, so we have to stay open), and I couldn’t even find a news story published in the previous 24 hours.

SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie > Santiago of Escuderia Boricua 08/31/2015 at 09:17

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My first hurricane (and one of only two I went to a shelter for) was Andrew. We were in a school for that one. Yeah, schools are the shit as far as storm shelters. I was able to stay at a hospital for Charley because of family that worked there, and it was pretty similar. We ended up getting a direct hit from a tornado during Charley. The roof failed and it flooded the top floor, but almost everything stayed intact. One of the Emergency Room doors was ripped of by the wind and someone managed to crawl out to their truck and move it to block the opening from the wind while other people tried to cover it from the inside using plywood, which was pretty awesome in an adventure movie kind of way. Charley was our bad one in my area. We had destruction similar to what Andrew did in Miami. When I was driving down the wrong side of flooded streets because of downed trees, I was convinced that our house didn’t make it, but all we did was lose our pool cage. The pool was full of canal water and the yard was full of debris, so a couple more inches and we would have had flooding in the house.

spanfucker retire bitch > SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie 08/31/2015 at 09:28

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It was so comical even Jon Stewart was making fun of them. He did a part of his show that week on the ridiculousness of the news networks since most of them have their headquarters in NYC and they wanted to make such a big deal out of it.

jariten1781 > SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie 08/31/2015 at 10:30

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“Yeah, schools are the shit as far as storm shelters.”

Unless you’re in the gym and the entire roof flies away...haha.

When Ivan hit down in Pensacola we were moved from the base to a local school. Super nice, cots all laid out, food, whatever. I’m just laying on my cot with headphones in, when suddenly rain and screaming people. *Yoink* Whole roof had torn away...oops. So we trudge up through all the fun debris and wall of rain to the main building...turns out no one has keys to anything other than the hallway doors...all the classrooms/cafeteria/library are locked AND they all have those wire meshed windows that are unbreakable so we can’t even bust in easily. End up trying to sleep, soaking wet, on the tile outside the lockers with hundreds of other folks.

Good times.

SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie > jariten1781 08/31/2015 at 10:42

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Yowsers, never did a gym before. Seems weird that they would do that since it’s pretty obvious that the roof on that wouldn’t be as strong as one on an all concrete main building with an inner structure.

jariten1781 > SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie 08/31/2015 at 11:22

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Original plan was to use the main structure, but then the forecasts kept pushing the storm further east so we were supposed to be on the west side which would have lower winds but maybe still a big surge. Just 4 days out they were predicting it running up the west side of the peninsula and just barely grazing us. Someone decided the wind risks were low and logistics at the gym were way easier so we set up shop there.

Whoops.

Instead we ended up just to east of the eye with the max winds. Surge was nasty too. Ended up with the best (worst) of both worlds.

SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie > jariten1781 08/31/2015 at 11:29

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Ouch. Yeah, your local government should have known better. Charley wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near us, but our local weathermen knew better and luckily the local government is pretty responsive for this kind of thing. You can’t plan on a miss four days out without a contingency plan. One thing that was always impressive to me was how incredibly well organized the recoveries all were under Jeb. I have plenty of issues with the guy, but he and/or his team really knew their shit and nailed it every storm. Can’t say the same for Rick Scott.

bubblestheturtle > SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie 08/31/2015 at 19:39

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At least you look up from the paper.

orcim > LongbowMkII 09/01/2015 at 01:32

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Overselling, or listening to the liability insurance sales people?

orcim > SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie 09/01/2015 at 01:33

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Just ran into windyty.com. It’s monster great.