Serious Hurricane Irma: What You Need To Know

You know things are getting serious when I suddenly come back to these forums and starting typing at 1:06 AM.

As you know, Hurricane Irma is a historically large hurricane coming to Florida and will beat the living hell out of it. If you're in the Florida area and have not either...

1. Evacuated
2. Fortified Your Home
3. Gone to a Shelter

...then frankly you're doing something wrong.

I personally live in the Tampa Bay area, and I thought that everything would be just fine when earlier models showed the path of Hurricane Irma going like this:


"Surely Tampa and the West Coast of Florida won't be impacted as bad!"
How naive I was.


These are the new models (as of 10:29PM, 9/8/17), showing a significant shift westward, placing Tampa Bay (where I currently am) in the direct path of the storm; likely to be the target of the Eye.

Don't let the spaghetti model fool you, though. Hurricane Irma is still going to impact the entire state of Florida. Length-wise and width-wise, it's the size of Texas. AKA bigger than the entire state of Florida. Wherever you are within the state, you'll be hit in some way regardless.



Hopefully most of you guys who live in Southern Florida have already evacuated up further north or have sought shelter. Good on you. For those who don't, there's no more time to waste to consider. Either leave Florida now, head for the East Coast where conditions are (slightly) more favorable (relatively speaking, of course), or seek shelter like I'm doing. I'll be staying in a hospital with my family over the next few days to wait out the hurricane. If I find any noteworthy stories, I'll make sure to share them with you guys.
For those of you staying at home, I hope you know the following:

• Building codes were changed around 1992, in the wake of Hurricane Andrew, so that an new construction would need to be able to withstand up to Category 2-3 hurricanes. If your house was built before the building codes were changed, your home may be significantly weaker and prone to damage.
• Concrete buildings are much, much safer than wood buildings. If you're in a wood building, consider a shelter nearby.
• Make sure to have enough supplies (food, water, entertainment, etc) to last 3 days.
• In the case of inevitable power outages, have spare batteries and flashlights on hand.
• Do NOT use your generator indoors. They release carbon dioxide emissions that give no odor but are toxic to your body.
• Make sure your windows are all boarded up or have hurricane shutters. If you are not able to, plan to stay in a part of your house with no windows (like a closet or a bathroom).
• For the 26th time, DO NOT TAPE YOUR WINDOWS. IT IS A MYTH THAT TAPING WINDOWS INSTEAD OF BOARDING THEM UP FORTIFIES THEM. In fact, they become more dangerous, splitting off into large chunks of glass flying at you instead of mostly harmless tiny pieces if the window breaks.
• Sandbags. If you haven't gotten them by this time it might be too late. Still, try to get sandbags and place them around places in the outside of your house where water might seep through.
• Use a radio! Keep yourself up to date when your cell phone provider stops working and the electricity is all gone.

For Hurricane Shelters:

Here's a general shelter guide/map for the entirety of Florida: http://floridadisaster.org/shelters/

Most shelters, at least in my area, open at 8AM this Saturday. Get there as soon as you can if you've made your decision to wait it out in your local shelter (which I would recommend).

• Click on the county you are in on the interactive Florida county map.
• Look at your area's shelters and find the one closest to you.

It will not be guaranteed that shelters will be able to provide ample food, water, or other resources to you. Make sure to bring your own food, water, entertainment, blankets, etc.

It's now 1:31 and I'm a bit sleep deprived. I'll add anything else I find as an update on this post tomorrow morning when I wake up. Good luck and stay safe, you guys.

Edit 1:
Doing Your Part: Making Donations
If you're not in Hurricane Irma's path and feel like helping out those in need through donations, you can do so through Red Cross. Another center for making your donations is through Hand in Hand, a telethon being held by large television networks on September 12th including ABC, CBS, FOX, MTV, HBO, and by social media including YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. The telethon will aim to raise as much money toward various Hurricane Relief charities through special programs, comedy, performances, etc. Please do what you can and help out the people affected, even if you only donate a few bucks.

Edit 2:
Hey, everyone. I'm currently in a shelter at a nearby veteran's hospital. Because my aunt works there, my family was able to get a special closed-off shelter area inside the hospital. We're pretty lucky, because our shelter space is pretty spacious, and far enough indoors where we probably won't even hear the hurricane when it makes it here. Additional benefits include our own sink, WiFi, and hospital-owned power generation and water supply. It'll strike Tampa around midnight tonight (9/10/17). I don't know if I'll be able to sleep. I may leave the interior shelter room and go to the front of the building to take pictures from the windows when it does come, although my camera won't be able to capture much, with it being midnight and all.

Edit 3: Storm passed as a Category 1; was relatively anticlimactic (a good thing)!

 

Thank you for this really informative post!
Wishing good luck to anyone who is affected by this hurricane. Stay safe! And if you don't personally live in Florida but got relatives or friends living there, tell them to stay safe as well, please.

Found out that the hurricane is now a category 5 hurricane... So please search for a shelter. Get safe.

 

Californian here, good luck; you'll need it.

 

I'm simultaneously very worried about everyone in Florida, glad that the notoriously boring British weather has major upsides, and confused about my thoughts on Mar-a-Lago...

 

Ok, Mar-a-Lago's distruction will be worth it if it means the prez stops going there

 

Thank you for the info, although I'm not in Florida. But you should make a post on Jose, that hurricane is coming to the Americas. There might be another one after that coming to the americas also.

 

Theres currently 2 million people without power and in the south part of Florida(the keys,miami etc) were hit hard.
Where me and Sara are(southwest) still has a couple hours before we get the 100+ MPH winds and horrible storm surge. The storm itself should stretch into monday evening.
We actually might get a direct hit, but we're in a nice sturdy house, high off the ground, with storm shutters so we should be ok.
Tbh im most worried about getting to work if my mustang gets damaged and has to be fixed.
Could be more updates to come.

 

I feel like I should bump this.

 

Yeah my uncle is in the airforce and he got some pretty hot snaps from irma

like a shot of him in a helicopter and flooding in florida, hope everyone is alright there