Yes, this is a Q Win. But we are family and now a lot of Florida pedes are facing a potentially dangerous storm. Some are new Floridians and have no idea of how evacuations work here or may need other help from us experienced Floridians.
So I thought we could do a check-in post here and we can move to another Win to support each other, if needed. I lost my old home at Weather Underground when they got bought by Weather Channel so it would be nice to have a bunch of y’all to chat with.
Right now, TropicalTidbits.com is the best online site outside of the National Hurricane Center. Levi has been hurricane forecasting for many years and is excellent. You can see the Euro and GFS models there also.
So if you are a Floridian and are facing the roller coaster of the next five days, go ahead and say hi!
Sarasota/Manatee area pede here. Our house is all block construction with cat 5 rated windows/roof (if there is such a thing) and buried utilities. How do we know whether to bunker down or evacuate?
Signed, First year Floridian with small children and pets
Always evacuate if you could drown from the storm surge. Then if that is not an issue, evaluate how well you can live with your family in that house with no electricity (no AC) until it comes back on. If your area gets the brunt of the storm, storm recovery can take a long time in a major storm. On the flip side, how well can you afford to pay for a hotel for up to a week?
Once you evacuate and the storm hits near where your home is, it can take days to clear the minor roads of trees and power lines, depending on the amount of destruction. Rural areas, people have chainsaws and everyone chips to clear the roads. City areas rely more on the government folks.
It's usually building/fire code for places like hotels and office buildings to have generators for emergency power. Whoever initially has a building made may opt to have a large generator for regular power, along with enough fuel storage to run it for a day or so. That's how my building is.
https://manatee.hosted.civiclive.com/departments/public_safety/emergency_management/evacuation_levels