Hurricane Michael thread: (Updates, commentary)

[GeorgiaModerate]

Riddle me this how can Trump find a way to take this issue and look like douche? Well hold a political rally in Pennsylvania right in the middle of the storm

If we're going to talk Politics, at least talk Rick Scott, Bill Nelson, Andrew Gillium and Ron Desantis, as their races are most affected the Hurricane.

There's a thread in the Congressional board for the political impact of Michael: https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=303601.0.  I suggest we keep this one to news/discussion of the storm and its direct effects.

[Grassroots]

The storm is officially down to category 1 intensity, about 85 MPH.

[KingSweden]

The storm is officially down to category 1 intensity, about 85 MPH.

How much rain is it dropping

[Hammy]

On an interesting historical note, Michael was the first Cat 3 to enter Georgia since 1898.

[DINGO Joe]

The storm is officially down to category 1 intensity, about 85 MPH.

How much rain is it dropping

It's moving pretty fast and isn't a huge storm, so with isolated exceptions  that won't be a problem.

[Grassroots]

The storm is officially down to category 1 intensity, about 85 MPH.

How much rain is it dropping

It's moving pretty fast and isn't a huge storm, so with isolated exceptions  that won't be a problem.

The main problem with the storm in GA is the downed trees, and I mean they're up there. It's really bad. Tornadoes too.

Also, post assessment might reveal that it was a Cat. 5. It's a real possibility.

[DINGO Joe]

The storm is officially down to category 1 intensity, about 85 MPH.

How much rain is it dropping

It's moving pretty fast and isn't a huge storm, so with isolated exceptions  that won't be a problem.

The main problem with the storm in GA is the downed trees, and I mean they're up there. It's really bad. Tornadoes too.

Also, post assessment might reveal that it was a Cat. 5. It's a real possibility.

Once Michael moved inland it cut across many rural counties with very high rates of mobile homes.  So wind and damage from fallen trees will probably be substantial.  Lots of poor and out of the way places that people don't generally get to and have been losing population for some time now.  Probably will hasten that decline.

[Person Man]

The storm is officially down to category 1 intensity, about 85 MPH.

How much rain is it dropping

It's moving pretty fast and isn't a huge storm, so with isolated exceptions  that won't be a problem.

The main problem with the storm in GA is the downed trees, and I mean they're up there. It's really bad. Tornadoes too.

Also, post assessment might reveal that it was a Cat. 5. It's a real possibility.

Once Michael moved inland it cut across many rural counties with very high rates of mobile homes.  So wind and damage from fallen trees will probably be substantial.  Lots of poor and out of the way places that people don't generally get to and have been losing population for some time now.  Probably will hasten that decline.

Which actually reminds me of something. Back in college, there were a lot of trailer parks. I even lived in one for a year. This was kind of the norm in a small town with a "rigged" (a normal sized apartment was like $800 a month and the jobs to be had only paid like $200-300 a week) economy. Thus for a town of 30000 people, there were a dozen trailer parks, so a substantial portion of the town's population lived in them. The town and school itself was  probably the public university that is the farthest from sea level and was on a 30 x 100 plateau between RMNP, a small mountain range to the east, and a somewhat more substantial one to the west. On this plain, winds would sometimes come off the mountains and gust as powerful as a Category 1 or 2 hurricane (on at least two recent occasions, there were reports of gusts over 100 mph and gusts to 40, 50, or even 60 were common on unseasonably warm winter days). I wonder why there wasn't more damage to all of those trailers.

[DINGO Joe]

Mobile home is a pretty varied term and the quality of said homes can vary quite a bit.  Some you can't even tell their a mobile home, others you can't believe people can actually survive a 10 mph wind.  I'm taking a fairly educated guess that there's a swath of mobile homes that have never faced such a challenge and probably were of lower quality to begin with.  It's not uncommon for some of these FLA, AL, GA counties to have 20-30% of the housing classified as mobile homes.

[BudgieForce]

On the bright side(not really), most of the destroyed homes and buildings are probably pre-Hurricane Andrew so when everything eventually gets rebuilt, the new buildings will have to be built to a stricter building code which means they'll fair better during the next hurricane.

[Joey1996]

280 people unaccounted for in Mexico Beach, Florida

https://www.businessinsider.com/hurricane-michael-ignored-evacuation-florida-2018-10

[Joey1996]

The storm is officially down to category 1 intensity, about 85 MPH.

How much rain is it dropping

It's moving pretty fast and isn't a huge storm, so with isolated exceptions  that won't be a problem.

The main problem with the storm in GA is the downed trees, and I mean they're up there. It's really bad. Tornadoes too.

Also, post assessment might reveal that it was a Cat. 5. It's a real possibility.

It was the most intense Atlantic hurricane sense Camile in 1969 at 919 mbar, and had wind speeds just 2 mph under a Cat. 5.

A post assessment is a very real possibility

[Koharu]

280 people unaccounted for in Mexico Beach, Florida

https://www.businessinsider.com/hurricane-michael-ignored-evacuation-florida-2018-10

Oh, no. :(

Really hoping that people are found safe and sound. This one really blossomed quickly and surprised people. Thankfully it won't have the same flooding impact as Florence, since it's a fast-mover, but man oh man, sounds like there will be a lot of work for folks now.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

[Joey1996]

280 people unaccounted for in Mexico Beach, Florida

https://www.businessinsider.com/hurricane-michael-ignored-evacuation-florida-2018-10

Oh, no.

Really hoping that people are found safe and sound. This one really blossomed quickly and surprised people. Thankfully it won't have the same flooding impact as Florence, since it's a fast-mover, but man oh man, sounds like there will be a lot of work for folks now.

Yeah, this thing rapidly intensified, it was intially projected to make landfall as a Cat. 1 iirc. A lot of people probably just didn't have the time to evacuate properly

[Grassroots]

280 people unaccounted for in Mexico Beach, Florida

https://www.businessinsider.com/hurricane-michael-ignored-evacuation-florida-2018-10

Oh, no.

Really hoping that people are found safe and sound. This one really blossomed quickly and surprised people. Thankfully it won't have the same flooding impact as Florence, since it's a fast-mover, but man oh man, sounds like there will be a lot of work for folks now.

Yeah, this thing rapidly intensified, it was intially projected to make landfall as a Cat. 1 iirc. A lot of people probably just didn't have the time to evacuate properly

The first reports after declaration of tropical cyclone status said that it would make landfall as a 70 MPH tropical storm, similar to Gordon just a month or two ago. Crazy right?

[Joey1996]

This is only getting worse

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny-news-thousands-missing-death-toll-climbs-hurricane-michael-20181013-story.html

[Hammy]

280 people unaccounted for in Mexico Beach, Florida

https://www.businessinsider.com/hurricane-michael-ignored-evacuation-florida-2018-10

Oh, no.

Really hoping that people are found safe and sound. This one really blossomed quickly and surprised people. Thankfully it won't have the same flooding impact as Florence, since it's a fast-mover, but man oh man, sounds like there will be a lot of work for folks now.

Yeah, this thing rapidly intensified, it was intially projected to make landfall as a Cat. 1 iirc. A lot of people probably just didn't have the time to evacuate properly

The first reports after declaration of tropical cyclone status said that it would make landfall as a 70 MPH tropical storm, similar to Gordon just a month or two ago. Crazy right?

What makes this worse is they were actively ignoring the model intensity in favor of the shear (which was being forecast by the same models that were forecasting intensification)

[DINGO Joe]

Nice overview of the damage from Tallahassee to (but not including Panama City).  Shows many inland rural areas took a beating too.

https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/hurricane/2018/10/14/hurricane-michael-arc-ruin-trail-destruction-florida-panhandle-big-bend/1614787002/

[Frodo]

Didn't seem to have made a difference as far as the red tide is concerned:

Experts: Hurricane Michael failed to end Florida's red tide