Hurricane Helene

[KentuckyCarbine]

Helene is rapidly intensifying and on track to become a dangerous, major hurricane. The storm's massive size and projected intensity are expected to cause devastating impacts in Florida and southern Georgia.
The storm is forecast to strengthen into at least a Category 3 hurricane before making landfall in Florida's Big Bend area on Thursday evening.

Hurricane Warnings and Storm Surge Warnings are currently in effect for most of Florida's Gulf Coast.
Helene is anticipated to bring widespread life-threatening storm surge flooding, significant property and infrastructure damage, and major flash flooding throughout the Southeast.

It's predicted to move into my AO, so I'm using this as a good opportunity to double-check my preps and make sure all my fuel cans are full (after being depleted by my summer laziness). 

[img width=100%]https://media.foxweather.com/weather/AL09_Cone.png[/img]

[Raptor]

Stay safe Helene looks like it can be a devastating hurricane. It is huge in size, not as large as Katrina but still predicted to be 400+ miles wide. That means a lot of storm surge over a large geographic area.

Obviously I am not telling you anything you do know; but with a huge cat 4 storm the risk of flooding is extremely serious.

Take care and stay in touch. Holler if you need anything.

BTW I saw convoys of linemen (electrical repair techs) and bucket trucks heading east on I-10. May your power not fail!

[majorhavoc]

For years, Gulf Coast hurricanes played a significant role in my life even though I live in Maine.  My aged parents lived in Sarasota and especially when Mom got really sick and Dad became infirm, it was an all hands on deck situation with my brothers and me when one looked like it might be making a beeline towards that part of Florida.  I remember once going down there days before they had a good sense of the storm track and I was buying my parents some supplies at a Sarasota Walmart, just in case.  There was this one other guy about my age and we were grabbing the last of the bottled water.  We kind of looked at each other, nodded that knowing way preppers do, and continued our separate ways.  There were so many storms over the years; I can't even remember if that particular one was bad.

Now that both my parents have passed, it feels weird to be monitoring storms like Helene with only a kind of detached concern.  Stay safe everyone.

[MacWa77ace]

Yeah, looks like it's heading for Mexico and Ft. Walton beaches. Those were a direct hit a few years ago.

Schools are closed here on the SE Coast today. But I'm at work. Our Tampa location is closed, and some of the team there are working from home as long as they have power and internet.

Partly cloudy here and pretty windy.

I expect it to get better as the day goes on.

[DarkAxel]

Looks like the remnants are going to hit my AO tomorrow. Heavy rain and winds hitting 60mph. I don't have to worry about flooding, but there are still people looking for homes after the 2022 flood here in Eastern Kentucky. We're already soaked from 4 days of heavy rain. For you folks down south be safe! If it hits bad here it means you all got mauled.

[Raptor]

The good news is that the storm seems to moving quickly. That means less time with storm winds in any area.

Stay safe.

Kentucky Carbine check in when you can.

[KentuckyCarbine]

Howdy All - 

To clarify, I'm not in Florida, but I'm still here in Kentucky. We're only experiencing the storm's remnants in my area. I do a lot work in Nashville, and the storm might hover there for a day or two. Our main concerns are flooding and the already waterlogged ground, and the high winds we expect this afternoon, which could lead to uprooted trees falling on power lines.

I've treated this situation as a "dry run" for my emergency preps, going through everything as if we were facing a week-long power outage. There are quite a few small things I've realized I'm missing. For example, I picked up a Dometic CFX-75 from an outdoor retailer last year, it was a floor model and only came with the AC power cord. So, I just ordered the DC plug that I didn't have.

Hopefully, this will be a good practice run for any future emergencies!

[Raptor]

Howdy All -

To clarify, I'm not in Florida, but I'm still here in Kentucky. 

Glad to hear you are on high ground. A dry run is a lot better than a wet run.
I have a friend in TN who is getting a lot from this and is having issues.

[KentuckyCarbine]

We ended up getting the "eyewall" right over us ... but by that time is was pretty mild.  We only had a few twigs and small branches down. 

I really thought we were going to have lots of trees on power lines, etc. but we were very lucky. 

[DarkAxel]

We ended up getting the "eyewall" right over us ... but by that time is was pretty mild.  We only had a few twigs and small branches down.

I really thought we were going to have lots of trees on power lines, etc. but we were very lucky.

We got a shitload of wind and rain here, and the power went out for a few minutes. It was coming down is sheets. I laid back down after the worst of it went over to take a nap, and when I woke up the wasn't a cloud in the sky and the sun was out. The surrounding counties got hit pretty hard by the wind. Power was out hard in Knott County. They are almost done getting everyone over there hooked back up. My property in Breathitt County flooded out, but nowhere near as bad as the flooding back in 2022. I think Harlan County and Pike County got hit the worst here in EKY.

It is kinda cool to look at the radar. You can watch the remnants of the storm still turning over the region. My family in Dayton said it feels weird to have rain coming in from east to west.

Lots of prayers and good vibes being sent down south.

[airballrad]

Sarasota, FL checking in. I'm about 8 miles inland, so we just got wind and rain. My in-laws are on the water, and they had about an 8-foot surge. About 3 inches of water on the ground floor, so anything on the floor was soaked in nasty water. In all, they were lucky; their house is standing and there is relatively minimal demo and repair to do. Their neighbor has a garage a bit lower in elevation than theirs, and the cars were totaled.

The impact from this storm was so huge that my high school kids here in SW Florida and my college kid in South Carolina were all off school on Friday.

[KentuckyCarbine]

DarkAxel and airballrad

 Glad y'all are okay.  It was strange to have rain coming from that direction! 

Our public school district canceled school on Friday, my oldest is in a private school, and they still had school. 



Here is an article I just read from USA Today that brings in a lot of prepping themes.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2024/10/03/helene-asheville-north-carolina-flooding-climate-change/75490093007/?tbref=hp

The author said it's taken eight days to get supplies from the government.  I think that people have "Hollywood Idealism" that the instant something happens, brigades of FEMA and National Guardsmen are going to show up to save the day the moment that sun peeks through. Everyone on this board is of the prepper mindset, but this should reinforce the idea that you must have plans for disasters of all sorts, even if they seem far-fetched. I doubt many people in NC prepped for rivers being 22 feet above flood levels - I don't even know what that would look like here. Seven to fourteen days of food/water should be the threshold you need to hit for the bare minimum. 

[Zed hunter]

Interesting posts on FB from mountain mule packers of S Carolina.  Found the posts on citizens free press.  I dont FB.

[Raptor]

This disaster response reminds me of Katrina. Although minus the MSM broadcasting pictures to embarrass the PTB.

See my tag line below.

[DarkAxel]

Some of what I've been reading is making me very pissed off, like helicopter pilots being threatened with arrest for helping with rescues and state and federal EMA's telling people not to bring aid to the flood zones all while DHS is announcing they have no more money for hurricane relief. Raptor is right, too many shades of Katrina here.

[Anianna]

In some cases, this is well-meaning people getting in the way of teams who are trained to handle it or people in power creating obstacles for the same teams.  They should be focused on rescue and aid, but they have to deal with people who may be doing more harm than good on either side of the power spectrum. 

In my state, for example, we have an organization which is essentially the state equivalent of FEMA on the ground coordinating rescues and aid, but a political executive on the other side of the state with zero understanding of the situation is overruling established decisions made by people trained to make those choices and barking orders that are detrimental to the efforts if followed and could lose people their livelihood if not followed.  Too many people want to play hero when they really should just get out of the way. 

Is it being well-handled?  I don't know.  I'm not there and I can't see for myself what is happening in real time and there is a lot of nuance and moving parts at play that skew perspective.  I'm sure there are plenty of things that could be handled better. 

Is the reporting shoddy and disjointed?  Absofuckinglutely, and it's frustrating as hell. 

[DarkAxel]

It's one thing to try to keep traffic in the affected areas down so the pros can work, but EMAs were telling people to stay away before they had pros ready to go themselves. One of the local non-profits I work with sent three truckloads of supplies on Saturday, and they didn't see any state or Federal EMAs until Monday.

[Raptor]

The help incident was just stupidity on the part of the fire chief. The other 1st responders agreed that it was stupid

In the aftermath of Katrina, people were stuck in floodwaters. People with boats (pre-Cajun Navy) showed and worked for a couple of days. Then the press found out and the next day for reasons of "safety, they were turned away.

When you are stuck for days in a disaster zone you want out. You really do not care if they are official.

Again see my tag line.

[DarkAxel]

Heard from folks in Tennessee that TEMA has their shit together now. Found out the local FDs sent their swift water rescue teams last week, too.