hurricane coming...

All those patreon bucks, like dust in the wind...

My parents have a boat in Ft Meyers that they've been trying to sell. Seems to have survived the storm winds, now it just has to survive the surge flooding....

My mom was supposed to move down to her place in Fort Myers Beach today but has postponed for about a week. It's on the Gulf shore - will know later if it's been damaged. She says her place is 20 feet above sea level so will not get flooded.

Im good. Other than trees down and flooding in the neighborhood that has already receded.

Had to drive half a mile down the street to get reception

Made my parents borrow a plunger this morning cos my dad freshly shat on top of the old poowater. I swear my folks are 12 year olds

moar thoughts and prayers 4 neanderthal's plumbing crisis

IT IS SOLVEEED

2 missing after riding out the hurricane on a boat

Joey Fago told CNN he can't find his relatives who rode out Hurricane Irma on a boat in Marathon in the Florida Keys. Irma made landfall in the Keys as a Category 4 storm.

Fago's cousin and uncle, who is a seasoned fisherman who's been through many hurricanes, were on a 48-foot sport fishing boat.

The National Guard is currently in the Keys, but Fago said the family wants to search as well.

"But there’s no communication back," he said. "We need to get down there."

Despite all that, Fago and the rest of his family are holding on to hope that the father-son duo made it through the storm.

"Everyone surprisingly is pretty good. We have a lot of confidence in Uncle Tom and Joey," Fago said.

Just got power.

https://media.tenor.com/images/3c33699fb5a8b5ed546c9b292097f070/tenor.gif

yay alfred

it's getting mighty windy here.

French and Dutch and others need to step up their efforts in the Caribbean it seems...Like in St. Martin

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/10/world/americas/irma-caribbean-st-martin.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=b-lede-package-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

“All the food is gone now,” Jacques Charbonnier, a 63-year-old resident of St. Martin, said in an interview on Sunday. “People are fighting in the streets for what is left.”

Residents of St. Martin, and elsewhere in the region, spoke about a general disintegration of law and order as survivors struggled in the face of severe food and water shortages, and the absence of electricity and phone service.

As reports of increasing desperation continued to emerge from the region over the weekend, governments in Britain, France and the Netherlands, which oversee territories in the region, stepped up their response. They defended themselves against criticism that their reaction had been too slow, and insufficient. Both the French and Dutch governments said they were sending in extra troops to restore order, along with the aid that was being airlifted into the region.

God, what a nightmare

Although some are getting help --

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/09/09/i-thought-i-was-gone-what-its-like-to-be-rescued-from-hurricane-irma-by-u-s-soldiers/?utm_term=.fbd1dea31a22

This time, they were met by half a dozen men from the 105th and 106th.

They had come to the island to pick up the diabetic patient, not the stranded resort guests. But they had brought with them an HC-130 plane with plenty of seats to spare.

Poe chatted with the airmen — mostly young men from New York, who had already been flying missions over a hurricane zone for hours.

The chef now speaks of those he met in St. Maarten in terms that transcend their professions. The resort manager who led him out of the hurricane's eye is a “hero.” The military personnel who escorted him and his wife to safety are saviors.

But as he spoke to the U.S. airmen that night on an isolated runway in the Caribbean, before finally leaving the island, they described their own work in modest terms.

“They said, ‘We heard a bunch of guys were down here,’ ” Poe said.

Left my parents' cos i couldnt take my moms negativity anymore

<3 to affected ilxors/kin at this time

i have power, no internet or tv, but honestly just glad the storm went about how I expected.

Florida has never seen a storm like this (one that impacts the ENTIRE state the way it did). with that being said, speaking only of the local impact to me, this one felt a lot like Charley. It wasn't as fast and didn't take a similar angle, but in terms of the wind speed, the fact that the worst winds happened here overnight, and the damage was about the same. I was fairly surprised that my apartment was pretty much unfazed. but we really only got 60-80 mph winds? generally don't see major damages unless there's accompanying flooding, a spawned tornado, or just a weak-rooted tree in an unlucky place. I think that's the visual that always freaks me out the most, the twisting trees - my folks only had palms at those, so that wasn't bad, but in 2004, I lived in Longwood, which had big oak trees in the back yard and one in the front and watching those motherfuckers Stretch Armstrong is unnerving.

saw my first ever bats! there is this ....idk what to call it, this wooden bat sanctuary that was atop a pole and it fell over, so the poor babies kept flying out.

a bit of "fake news" caused a mass panic among my friends as well. Seems someone in NWS Melbourne made a cryptic statement about the eye shifting over Orlando, and one of our networks outright stated there would be an east wobble and the eye was "coming right for Orlando", possibly w/ Cat 2 winds. the NHC, nor the other networks agreed (though both conceded the eye was coming much further east and would come very close, west of Orlando, meaning heavier winds). basically saw 100s of people lose their mind even though the wind speeds in the worst case scenario were like exactly what we were told to expect on Thursday, when all of us decided not to evacuate....and then we only wound up getting Cat 1 winds anyway. Needless panic.

All of my friends, family, and co-workers are ok, even the ones in Tampa and ft Myers, so that's all I could ask for. Hoping my Aunt's house is ok, but they haven't been able to check yet. Jacksonville took it bad (w/ it's proximity to the water, I'm not surprised).

still fucking insane that even as a weakened tropical storm this afternoon, two states were getting trop storm winds simultaneously. will not be sad to see this motherfucker go.

local news now trying to get everybody freaked out about JOse, writing copy saying it could impact FL even though any landfall is ten days out and the NHC in the article say essentially "we have no idea where this is going yet".

I'm going to NOrth Carolina Wednesday. I need a break from this all!

vibes man

Ended up sleeping through it in Tampa. Hopefully I don't go without power for weeks. It's going to be 100 today. I'm alive so shouldn't complain.

Hello. I managed to peck out another hurricane diary entry.

I'm hearing they have to rebuild some of the power infrastructure in some areas. yipes!

It's an infrastructure kind of year.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaand Orlandonians have already pivoted from "I'm so glad we're safe, we got lucky" to "it's unacceptable that Duke Energy doesn't have our power back on yet and can't tell us when". even though they were warned about this exact possibility a week ago.

taking a FB break before I kill someone - at least in 2004 there was no FB to see everybody cry murder. course I can't say anything cos I have power so I'll look like a dick, though I was ready to book a hotel if I didn't and file a renter's insurance claim.

thankfully my parents are staying w/ someone with power cos I really just can't handle babysitting them right now. I did offer them a key to my place while I'm gone, but my mom would just tell me what a mess it was so I'm glad they took that option.

(I get the frustration, and there are some who have kids with C-Pap machines who need the power, but the ones complaining the loudest are people who are mad that their salami is getting warm)

Oxfam is concentrating their relief efforts on the Caribbean, if you wish to donate.

https://secure2.oxfamamerica.org/page/content/emergency_hurricaneirma/

ty

irma was chill, never lost power, got lucky

We got power back yesterday morning. Half the park is still out, though. No damage other than a bunch of small fallen tree limbs.

My dad's been having a party for like the last three days. His guests are all still there because the power is still out in the whole town but at least there are board games and beer in a cooler at my dad's.

that's pretty cool

I've seen what unlimited cans of Vienna sausage, the mephitic Florida heat, and lukewarm Bud will do to a man in 48 hours.

:(

Dairy Queen was busy. the poor folks were understaffed as hell, we were appreciative for the food.

Yeah that's the one thing - I asked him about the heat and he said that was pretty unbearable and really hard to sleep at night. :(

i just heard 35 accidents have happened due to the traffic lights being out (assholes just driving through them instead of treating like a 4-way stop). terrified of friends/family getting t-boned but I have no control over it so *sigh*.

at least they started putting in portable stop signs at them

I feel quite embarrassed that the UK met office is persisting with naming our "storms". They were quite something a few years back, but in comparison to the disasterous carnage that has occurred in the Caribbean/US/Southern hemisphere, still quite like "is that a fly on my arm" in comparison.

Yeah. More of an annoyance last night being woken up by the strong winds but they were probably only gusting at maybe 55mph so can't imagine what it must be like facing winds of 100+mph

people now starting a campaign on FB to flood social media of Duke Energy and FPL due to the time being taken to restore power. I hate our civilians so much.

Record outages, and they warned in advance of the length of time, and nobody listened. A friend of mine told me she witnessed someone on her street harassing three different linemen demanding to know when her power would be back.

I'm sympathetic on the one hand cos those with families and pets, it's really difficult to deal with the schools being closed all week and having no power, and venting is the best way to deal w/ that.

but on the other hand 6 million people lost power at the same time, and one of the providers (Duke) had multiple states hit. poor employees working double and triple shifts probably.

I'm in NC now though and loving it.

My dad still doesn't have power. I didn't really need to know that he is "sweating (his) balls off" though.

Are the depts that are supposed to be helping restore things to a pre-storm level of functionality properly staffed? I thought those were the ones people had been saying for months hadn't been restaffed since transition.

Anyway hope everybody down that way is finding things slowly improving and there's nothing else going to hit over the rest of the season.

In situations like these, they bring in out of state help. For instance, a number of crews from Center point Energy here in Houston, having returned considerable service normally in the wake of Harvey (with assistance from imported crews from as far away as Illinois and Missouri), are in Florida working.

I'll be thrilled to have power back by this weekend, not sure how likely that is. Kind of feel stuck in a rut until it returns.

Anyway, can't complain about our power company. We started with 44% of their customer base having power on Monday morning, up to 75.8% right now.

I can't even read about those nursing-home deaths in Hollywood.

putting this here for neanderthal

http://68.media.tumblr.com/c8251df021a77e947cebdf47459a0e65/tumblr_ou3fihY1N01u0l7mmo1_500.jpg

Lol

Harley's into some freaky shit, huh.

Official Irma track shows that Orlando never got sustained hirricane winds. Was still more destructive here than Charley cos it was here longer but Charley brought much higher winds.

Imagining how much worse itd have been if the erroneous 11 pm report had come true.

https://i.imgur.com/FMvyfEf.jpg

what a weirdo