Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Conversation >

Atlantic Hurricane Season 2005/2006

Page: (1)2 3 4 5 6... 10

19:41 / 14.08.04

Are grant (and any other Floridian Lithers) okay? Not blown to Oz or anything?

21:46 / 14.08.04

yes, I've been thinking about you lots today grant - hope everything's okay.

00:52 / 15.08.04

His blog hasn't been updated since 27 July so Lord knows what's happening. I suspect it would take a supernatural force to shift him if he tied himself down with the ends of his moustache. He may be hiding out in the hills, just like the guys in Deep Impact but not in a film, in irl. Crumbs.

01:32 / 15.08.04

His LJ was updated on Aug 5th, but that doesn't tell us much more. Unfortunate. And worrisome.

*

01:33 / 15.08.04

Best wishes from Tampa Bay-- we ducked and that mysterious place known as "points south" was behind us, looks like. And I feel terrible about that, even though I had nothing to do with it. (I've always been convinced tinkering with the weather was a bad idea.)

Some friends of mine evacuated from Sarasota, which doesn't seem to have had even a downed limb, to Arcadia, where they were within a handsbreadth of the eye wall. Damn storm.

Grant, if you need any help, let me know-- e-mail me at kerethATgmailcom. I'm near enough I can lend a hand, and my schedule's flexible for the next week or so.

subcultureofone

13:24 / 16.08.04

i live in gainesville (north central florida) which was in the projected path before it turned. everything is fine here, but my parents, who live in oviedo (northeast of orlando) had the eye pass over them and won’t have power until saturday at the earliest, have at least a dozen foot-and-a-half diameter trees down, no water, no open grocery stores or gas stations within miles, etc. but they only lost part of the garage roof, and my dad’s repaired that already.

a mutual friend talked to grant saturday or sunday & he’s ok

13:40 / 16.08.04

Yeah, I'm fine -- we didn't get any action at all, other than a pleasant lunch with some other internet friends who evacuated south from Satellite Beach.

Well, I do have a nasty cough, but it's getting better -- brought that one back from the Cumberland Island trip last week. At any rate, y'all are sweet, but the action was all on the other side of the state for the most part.

The power's out in Oviedo? Heck, that surprises me. The bit about leaving Sarasota for Arcadia, though, that's typical -- the last storm I did any evacuating for, I left a safe place to go right into the storm's path, as it turned out. The damned things keep *moving*.

13:51 / 16.08.04

Grant, if you need any help, let me know-- e-mail me at kerethATgmailcom. I'm near enough I can lend a hand, and my schedule's flexible for the next week or so.

Hey, maybe you could truck some bags of ice in to subcultureofone's folks in the midweek sometime, huh? I'm not sure where people are relative to one another, so I don't know how big a trip that'd be, but it's a thought....

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

13:58 / 16.08.04

Jeez, grant, what is it with you and unpleasant current affairs (other than your job, obviously...)... first anthrax, now natural disasters... ever thought of getting your own TV show?

Seriously, glad you're okay.

subcultureofone

21:33 / 16.08.04

The power's out in Oviedo? Heck, that surprises me.

my parents' house is kind of on the edge of oviedo. when we moved to the house in 1980, it was in maitland. the municipal boundaries were redrawn and it was ‘moved’ to winter park, then oviedo. it’s next to tuscawilla middle school and half a mile from my old high school; they also do not have power. some friends from high school had an enormous oak tree squash half their house and its roots broke the water main. about 20 feet of an eight-foot-high brick wall was knocked down and the fence for the high school’s tennis court was blown away. another problem is that there are not enough materials immediately available for repairs, much less people to make them, and many streets are still blocked so repair crews cant get through. homes that weren’t a total loss after the hurricane continue to be damaged as they are rained into. the people who do have water are being told to boil it. demand for gasoline is very high because of generators and chainsaws, but most stations in that area don’t have power either, and the ones just outside the ‘blackout’ area don’t have any gas left.

*

15:58 / 17.08.04

grant, for some reason I thought you were in Ft. Myers. So glad I was wrong.

Yeah, I could go see some people in the oviedo region; it's only a few hours away. I have an unpleasant ex and a pleasant ex dating each other up there. I have the morbid urge to go see if they're okay and bring them supplies, despite the fact that it would probably cause problems later... if I can remember where the house is...

21:26 / 17.08.04

Well at least in an official disaster area it couldn't get worse...

16:03 / 18.08.04

Pretty soon after Andrew, they had a whole system set up for bringing supplies in -- I imagine the same will be true for Port Charlotte/Punta Gorda NW to Oviedo/Winter Park. Like, places to drop off ice and bottled water and whatever else. Ice was the big one, I remember.

Home Depot's sales are already up 500%, I heard on the radio today.

subcultureofone -- are your folks sticking it out down there, or are they coming out to hang with you?

16:16 / 18.08.04

I know this wholly insensetive,
But why do people not build their houses out of bricks over there, then maybe the damage would be quite as bad. Im sure im not the first person to think of that, is it just a cost thing that they tend to be made of wood?

17:00 / 18.08.04

It's not the building materials, but the type of construction which makes the difference. I've noticed many a collapsed brick wall on the various news reports. In fact, on the news they've shown the 100+ year-old house (wooden) which survived virtually intact, while everything around it is rubble.

Once the windows are breeched & the wind enters the house, lifting the roof off, any house is toast.

17:10 / 18.08.04

Also, it's all very well being snug and dry in your brick fortress when there's no power in 100 degree+ heat... no air conditioner, no refrigerator, no electric stove, no microwave, no fans, no potable water, and plenty of mosquitoes breeding in all the pools of still water left by the rains.

In other words, infrastructure is a real problem.

But it does have to be said that shoddy/quick+dirty construction did make Andrew's aftermath a whole lot worse than it would have been. Florida is like the poster state for suburban sprawl, developments sprouting like mushrooms, all drywall and thumbtacks. As a result of Andrew, though, there are rafts of new building regulations.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

18:39 / 18.08.04

I've always assumed that, given that bricks ain't shit in the path of a hurricane, it makes more sense to have bits of wood being flung about than it does bricks. Also it's probably easier and cheaper to rebuild, if you're in an area where you know this is a risk.

subcultureofone

11:33 / 19.08.04

subcultureofone -- are your folks sticking it out down there, or are they coming out to hang with you?

they went to texas. my brother's family is there; my sister-in-law is 7 months pregnant and has gone into premature labor. she's on strict bedrest and has a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old, so they're going to help out. plus my dad was getting tired of clearing trees/debris with no way to bathe. he tried jumping in the swimming pool but it has a tree in it too and he did not like bathing with the tree. i think the heat would have made it unbearable anyway- one of the medications my mom takes for breast cancer causes hot flashes that are uncomfortable enough with air conditioning. they’d be here with me otherwise.

13:29 / 19.08.04

Good to know your family is OK; best wishes for your sister-in-law. (Friend of mine in Atlanta just gave birth at 7 months ((had other health problems that required surgery)) -- actually, an ex-girlfriend of Harry's. Baby and mom are now healthy and recovering well.) I'm sure having your folks there will help keep things going well.

13:20 / 01.09.04

Category 4 and rising, motherfuckers!

20:05 / 01.09.04

Palm Beach County issued a mandatory evacuation for about 300,000 residents living along coastal parts of the county, effective 2 p.m. Thursday.

I TALK TO THE WIND, MOTHERFUCKERS! THE WIND CANNOT HEAR!

21:52 / 01.09.04

Take care of yourself, sugar.

subcultureofone

11:18 / 02.09.04

are you headed this way?

12:21 / 02.09.04

I'll know that by tonight, I think. It looks like Frances is gonna run straight up the turnpike from us to you, so fleeing north won't make much sense for me.

According to some of the models, she might go for a double header... West Palm metro over to Tampa metro. That's two major population centers at once. Plus, tropical storm force winds over the western Orlando suburbs. That's a lot of potential damage... make sure your folks are OK, sub-o-1!

We're looking at sticking it out, and if necessary falling back to my sister-in-law's house, which is a couple blocks west of me (further from the Intracoastal) and 20 blocks north (away from the spillway linking the waterway to Lake Okeechobee - for the non-Floridians reading this, that's the big blue dot in the middle of the state).

12:54 / 02.09.04

From today's Palm Beach Post:

In West Palm Beach, all but two of the 75 residents at Casa Loma Mobile Home Park plan to leave, said Margie Bellamy, who has owned the park for 38 years.

Bellamy said one holdout, a single mother with a 3-year-old and a teenager, might leave later. Another plans to stay put.

"I told him he had better tattoo his name on his
arm," Bellamy said, "so they can identify his body."

12:55 / 02.09.04

Well, keep in touch once you've battened down the hatches.

And if you get blown to Oz, be sure to file a story to The Sun.

subcultureofone

16:43 / 02.09.04

i've found a scary picture here

gainesville residents are either fleeing in abject terror or buying lots of alcohol. actual quote from local paper: “if it comes here, i’m going to fly my family to north dakota or something like that. i don’t know anybody in north dakota and never heard anything bad happening in north dakota, so it must be a good place.” there was one person who misread the title of our stormwatch thread on a local message board as “france is invading florida” rather than “frances invading florida”. i think these reactions explain a lot about this state’s problems. we had to vote again tuesday. we can’t take much more! france is invading! i’m goin’ to north dakota!!

00:17 / 03.09.04

Frances -- you remember that movie Twister, where Bill Paxton gives that speech about the awesome power of the perfect destroying machine, and this funnel cloud comes down that's like the size of a small house?

Frances is now larger than the state of Texas.

I've shuttered and boarded three houses today (mine, parents, stepson's cello teacher who just moved here from Wisconsin).

It's dark inside a shuttered house.

Listened to Lift to Experience on the drive home from work this noon (released early). It's helpful.

Angel of God, my guardian dear
to whom God's love commits me here,
Ever this day be at my side
To light, to rule, to guard and to guide....

So, I've got my gun and gunny sack.

INTO THE STORM!

14:30 / 03.09.04

Today's update...

Tryphena Absent

14:40 / 03.09.04

It's like an image of the music in that Star Wars film when Darth Maul and one of the goodies are fighting with extra strength light sabers.

subcultureofone

15:59 / 03.09.04

my parents left for north carolina yesterday but it took them over 4 hours to get from orlando to ocala (usually about 90 minutes).

my friend greg in vero beach, who lives two miles in from the beach, is not leaving. he says he's staying, "come hell or high water, roof or no roof," & with the boards up his house is "like a mausoleum." which is as little too much foreshadowing for me.

walgreens is trying to schedule xian to work in jacksonville on sunday.

i hear atlanta is nice this time of year.

16:17 / 03.09.04

Irony: I was *planning* on going to Atlanta for Labor Day weekend to meet another adoptive/China family and see the Monkey King exhibit at the Children's Museum. But decided to stay to board things up and, if the storm surge comes, lift stuff over the water.

Right now, it's really hot and sort of still outside. We folded out our sofa bed for the kids to play on & watch videos. When the "loose" feeder bands (those arms of the spiral) pass by, there's some rain and wind -- the rain falls at about a 40 degree angle.

The boy is getting bored, so I'm now typing between rounds of "slaps." Sometimes, I flinch.

Light is coming in through screwholes in the shutters and the only unboarded glass, a sliding glass door leading into our enclosed carport.

Storm set to arrive at 2pm tomorrow, now. The islands have knocked her down to a Cat-3, but if she's still this slow, there's plenty of time to gather up intensity (and/or *rain*) between now and then.

The baby is fussing - must cut cheese for her now.

16:24 / 03.09.04

By the way, over 2 million people have been evacuated statewide -- the largest such group in state history.

16:33 / 03.09.04

Grant, are you sure it's going to be safe to stay where you are? Having never lived in a area where hurricanes happen they seem terribly scary, I'm not sure I could stick it out at home. Good luck.

01:02 / 04.09.04

Am I sure it's going to be safe?

Oh, not really, I guess. It's unlikely, though, that the house will be damaged. It survived Cleo in the 50s. The houses built in the 70s are the deathtraps -- the advantages of being a fan of the old and funky, I guess.

Frances has dropped to a Category 2 storm now, but may bump back up to Cat 3 overnight. At this point, rain flooding is looking to be worse than storm surge -- winds have died down, but the real problem now is that she's moving 4 miles per hour (very slowly) and pulling up a lot of water. It looks like she'll spend two days, just about, moving by us. Which is a long time for 100 mph winds and rain, rain, rain. They expect 20 inches tomorrow.

I'll keep checking in as long as the power is on and the phone lines up.

Page: (1)2 3 4 5 6... 10