Hurricane Season 2020

[Rex G]

Well, this Beta thing is causing “Interesting Times” for the Texas coast. When I went to sleep, we were looking at the possibility of being affected mid-week. I awaken this morning to find that we could be getting affected by tomorrow. (Sunday) The chief concern is the amount of rain, caused by an indecisive, wandering-slowly-about storm. One small blessing is that our ground is dry, the flood-control reservoirs were already emptied, before Laura, and, much work has been done, on retention/detention basins, in our local Braes/Brays Bayou watershed, since Harvey.

Thankfully, we prepped for Hurricane Laura, and have to always be ready for storm-water flooding, so are not caught unprepared.

[knownothing]

Sally was the first "direct hit" hurricane I've been exposed to since moving to Florida several years ago. I would say that I was generally ready but next time there area few things I need to be more ready for. I'll list below my lessons learned:

1. Don't ever line in a floodplain: If you have a choice, live on a hill. After 25 inches of rain, I didn't even have a puddle in my yard. I am at a high 46 feet elevation on a sandhill and a quarter mile to the bay. At that point the only worry becomes wind since the flooding chance is nearly eliminated.

2. Cut all water oaks/willow oaks away from the house and your power lines. These are quick growing, weak oaks and they shear large limbs in wind with relative ease. They also have shallow root systems, and in a heavy rain situation with lots of wind, the analogy of an iceberg flipping comes to mind. I don't have any in the yard but three came down on power lines within a block of me.

3. Don't let your vehicle get below a 1/2 tank during hurricane season. I have been following this rule and it enabled me to get to work after the storm. I couldn't find gas until three days after the storm and it was 60 miles away in Crestview. In the future I plan to pick up a 30 gallon tank for both my vehicle and generator and rotate fuel periodically.

4. Hang out on your front porch nightly, and coordinate with your neighbors to do so. I confronted a man riding his bike up and down our street around 10 pm who was using a flashlight to shine at homes that did not have lights on. Probably scared the hell out of him because I was wearing my PVS-14 on my head, but he said he was looking for an address that wasn't around; I told him it wasn't around my street and he left pretty quick. We didn't a have a problem with looting in our area as far as I know, and my neighbors and PPD kept a good presence through the day and night.

5. Too many valuables is a liability; especially guns. We had to leave town on Friday for prior commitments and our power was still out. I decided to take a fair number of guns just in case someone slipped under my neighbor's nose who was looking after the house but I left more than I comfortable with in the safe. Thankfully it all worked out, but it definitely has me reconsidering how large I will let my collection grow.

6. Download and use the Windy App, they default to suing the European Model and it had Sally tracking towards us way before the NOAA Models.

Supplies wise we were all good and weren't wanting for anything, but I may pick up a few more items before too long. All in all, wouldn't recommend a hurricane, but they are a manageable event for sure.

[LittleLebowski]

Hurricane Delta is not looking good.

[Rex G]

Hurricane Delta is not looking good.

I fully agree. This one is building strength, fast, and it is going to hit a number of folks, somewhere.

[revchuck38]

Hurricane Delta is not looking good.

Yup. The current forecast shows it hitting the eastern part of Louisiana, but the "cone of error" stretches from the TX/LA border to the FL panhandle. If the current forecast holds, I'll be on the west ("dry") side.

[RoyGBiv]

Looking like a strong but compact storm, currently CAT4 and about to thrash the Yucatan.
Hopefully it weakens below the projected CAT3 landfall in the US.

Aside: Someone needs to tell those Greeks that D comes BEFORE G.

[JTQ]

Not wishing bad on anybody else, but the debris from Hurricane Sally hasn't been cleared yet. Everybody on my street has a pile of stuff piled 4-10 feet high sitting in their front yard up against the street. That stuff will turn into projectiles if Delta comes our way as a CAT 3.

On the good side, it looks like this storm is a fast mover so it won't sit over anywhere for very long.

As of 1330 Central today, the local Shell station is out of gas. I suspect they'll get a refill before the hurricane hits, but no gas is not fun if the evacuation order goes into effect.

[Stephanie B]

Hurricane Delta is not looking good.

It’s looking somewhere between “bad” and “mother of God”.

[LittleLebowski]

It’s looking somewhere between “bad” and “mother of God”.

Goddamn, I love it when you weigh in

[DrkBlue]

It’s looking somewhere between “bad” and “mother of God”.

Yep, I came here to say the same thing.

I was getting a pretty timely feed out of the National Hurricane Center on the forecast updates today. I cannot recall any other ramping from tropical depression to CAT2 to CAT4 in the forecasts like that. The folks in Miami - and in the air - were transmitting the pucker factor very clearly.

The storm also isn’t meandering or lollygagging, it is going to move smartly in the forecast models.

Where there was damage before, the grid, telecom, etc. is pieced together with bailing wire after four decent storms on the Gulf Coast in three months. The mojo feels bad on this - wish all the best, but time to execute plans seems short.