The Weather Thread

[Diomedes]

As something of an experienced hand with honestly pretty light duty digging, I can assure you that trenching is far, far more expensive than hanging strings on poles.

[General_Failure]

Especially so when you're dealing with two feet of soil on top of sand. You're just going to keep digging, and it's going to keep filling right back in.

[Geowhizzer]

Back online.  I was very fortunate - the only thing we lost was Wi-Fi/internet.  And cellphone coverage in the swamp is terrible, so I was under a communication blackout starting at about dinner time on Wednesday.  But no wind or flood damage to my house.

Lots of debris to clean up - but not as much as Irma for me.  With Irma, I got the eye.  As I'm pretty far inland (about 20 miles) and the storm didn't make landfall until Charlotte Harbor, I got a ton of rain and TS/ maybe Cat-1 winds.

Along the coast, it will take a long time to recover.  Downtown Naples, Bonita Beach, Fort Myers Beach, Sanibel Island - all are devastated.  A few teachers at my school have suffered a lot of flood damage.  It seems to be the same through Orlando.

[Geowhizzer]

anyone see the video of all the water in tampa getting pushed out to sea...basically the opposite of a storm surge...pretty cool

also why doesn't florida have more power lines underground?...i never really understood that

I am by far no expert.  I know that the water table is really high (like 1 foot from the surface in some areas) in my area.  Maybe that has something to do with it?  And down here, it may be six inches of top soil on top of sand.

One thing that FPL has been doing in my area is installing large concrete light poles in place of the old wooden ones.  That started after Irma, but is not fully complete.

Somehow in the entire storm I never lost power.  I am one of the few.  Many people I know got it back by last night.  With Irma, some didn't get it back for two weeks.  I'm sure along the coast it will be closer to that.

[General_Failure]

The water table is super high, yeah. Florida is essentially one big sink hole waiting to happen.

[Geowhizzer]

The water table is super high, yeah. Florida is essentially one big sink hole waiting to happen.

The sooner the better.  Just let me get out first.

[PhillyPhreak54]

Glad you guys made out ok.

The coastal damage is wild to see. Hope the people who took it on the chin there are able to recover.

[ice grillin you]

this is stupid to even say after Florida but holy shtein the rain rain hasn't stopped here for three hours now

[Rome]

The official estimate for rainfall here was 28 inches.  I can easily believe it.  Places that never flood were 3 feet under water.  Places that do flood were 10 feet under water. 

I escorted FEMA yesterday to show them damage.  It was severe on the beach.  All three were Build Back Better democrats too.  How utterly refreshing it was to speak to smart and capable young people who didn't roll their farging eyes when I started talking about sea level rise due to climate change.  They actually agreed with me when I mentioned coastal resiliency. 

[Diomedes]

we've enjoyed a delightfully cool, showers on, showers off couple of days, which follow a long dry stretch

in conclusion:  move North, fool

[General_Failure]

The cost of living is still much more affordable down there. I am not looking forward to the next oil bill.

[Diomedes]

The money cost, sure. 

What about the psychic cost?

I'm good with paying money for heating oil at any price if that's what it takes to avoid living in hell surrounded by Satan's thronging shtein spawn.

[General_Failure]

I live in Pennsyltucky, the psychic cost is just as high. I'm fargin' surrounded by mediocre middle aged white guys in neo nazi merch.

[Diomedes]

Damn bro.  I'll take squeegee boys and 12 O'Clock boys over red hatters rolling coal every time. 

You might consider another move....come to the City.  It's actually better here, even in shtein hole Baltimore City.

[Geowhizzer]

The story of hurricanes...

I live in Collier County but teach in Lee (the next county to the north).  I drive about 30 miles to get to work.

To this point, I have not driven further than about halfway to work.  From what I can see, the only real damage was to the vegetation.  There are gigantic piles of palm and pine branches everywhere, including my own front yard.  A few homes may have some roof damage or a broken window or two, but none that were overly noticeable.  We were much more fortunate than those further west and north.

From what I am hearing, flooding did much more damage than winds in this storm.  Three of the teachers in my school have significant flood damage to their homes, and quite a few lost their cars in the storm.

Collier schools opened up today.  I know that some in downtown Naples have some damage, but they're all usable.  Like I said earlier, my house had zero damage.

The district to the north of Lee (Charlotte County) announced today that they are going to *try* to get the schools back open by October 24.

My district will make its announcement tomorrow.  At present time, I believe three schools are basically destroyed and an additional 14 are severely damaged.  My school had pretty light damage, but some in the area still do not have power.  My guess is that we'll cancel next week, and put off further cancellations until the end of next week with the goal of trying to get a tiered reopening in the schools that are able to do so.  If that is the case, I'd believe that my school will be one of the earliest openings, while arrangements for temporary schooling will have to be made for the coastal schools.

We also have a number of students in the district (perhaps a few from my school, but many more in the coastal populations) that are currently functionally homeless.  There will probably be a few student transfers between schools, or even out of the district for those that evacuated.

Helped my church unload some food and supplies from Miami that we are going to disperse through local charities.  My district has received shipments sent from other school districts (Miami-Dade and Pinellas are the two that I can think of immediately) and is distributing supplies to those in need at various schools in the county.

Somehow a temporary road to Pine Island was rebuilt in five days.  Publix trucks were on it within an hour to restock their shelves.  The road to Sanibel is longer and is hoped to be done by the end of the month.  Both Islands were devastated and will have to be rebuilt nearly from scratch.  It normally would take me about an hour-plus to drive to Sanibel... less than 40 miles away.