June 1st, 2012 - - Day 1 Hurricane Season

Sitting here in bed typing on my laptop trying to figure out where I am this first day of the Hurricane Season.  Watching the local news roundup...  love watching local news or TWC when I am traveling as you are always sure where you are when you look up and see the scroll across the bottom. Or in this case... the news anchor, this is not Channel 7 News in Miami . . . she does a good job, just sort of very North Carolina. But, a great visual wake up call for both the season and my port of call for the next week.

What I see when I watch the weather and news in Miami....

Of course I know where I am physically, but my mind is still partly on South Beach and another part is in New York, I'm somewhere in between it seems taking a break for a week before I hit the road again and taking stock on my life as we begin the Season officially. Seems I am starting the Atlantic Hurricane Season in North Carolina this year.

Bryan Norcross is on TWC but he's at the NHC in Miami while Stephanie Abrams is in NY on TWC that is based in Atlanta. Geographically a little challenged here today. Rick Knabb who usually is in Atlanta at TWC is in Miami at the Hurricane Center taking the helms as it's new director.  Which makes me wonder, who is running the show in Atlanta at the studio?  It's beginning to feel like The Weather Channel is NBC News's South Campus.

And, two tropical systems affected the Jacksonville/Savannah area which NEVER gets hit . . .

2012, two named tropical systems already and how many to go I wonder?

There's a high chance of Severe Weather here later today, possibly a tornado. Is this Kansas? Nah, my son who usually is in Iowa is in Kansas City.

This year has become like musical chairs it seems.

Graduation Season.... my youngest son in Miami graduated from High School, the always wonderful Hebrew Academy that the kids call "Camp Academy" because of the quirks of being in a small, private, close knit school where you can get signed out early and... go to the beach a block a way or Lincoln Road two blocks away and it gets even better in your "Senior Year" when school seems optional. I'm being playful, it's a great school... worth every dollar that I spent to send him there... proud and happy that he is part of a Florida, Miami institution that teaches both Jewish and English studies as well as teachers young people to part of society, the world around them in all ways both social as well as extra-curricular from basketball to putting on charity fashion shows for cancer. Education is more than about the books and tests you take... it's what you will make of yourself in the larger world and your place in that world. The Hebrew Academy does a fantastic job, the staff treats each child like they are part of a family and it's about as good as it gets in many ways. Not to mention... a block from the Ocean, a roof with a view ..

GREAT SCHOOL :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4Fbv-nOTwg  (historic overview of 60 years plus)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8d6PawX36Ew

Of course, every year we hope it and the rest of Miami Beach does not get blown away in a Hurricane.

You wondered where I was going with this didn't you? Tell the truth....

Living in Miami or anywhere near the ocean carries the always present risk of being affected by a Category 1 or Category 5 hurricane.

Andrew taught me that lesson and it's a lesson I will never forget.

WORST CASE SCENARIOS DO COME TRUE:

This is my favorite Andrew picture. The LAST image from the NHC before it's satellite dish went off flying into the tropical night after a 160mph "gust" sent that radar dish to Oz. See the big red, orange, muddy color band just north of the eye wall?  That band was about to hit Miami Beach with some of the strongest winds of the night; the house shook, the sound of the ocean was heard, the wind shrieked and we huddled upstairs praying our way through the rest of the night. 

I heard on TWC that Hurricane Andrew took 3 hours to cross the Miami area. You could have fooled me... seemed like hours and hours, like an all night...two day affair. I spent part of the day before Andrew preparing and the other part at the Beach with my best friend Sharon and the night before driving around South Beach with my ex-husband trying to memorize what it looked like because I was afraid it would never look the same after the storm.

Miami Beach got lucky, we got what was basically a strong Hurricane... strong gusts, a twister a block from my house tore the roof off one house on Indian Creek and dropped it dramatically into the pool of the house behind it... where the roof floated like a sailboat grounded, landlocked suddenly. The City did a great job of keeping the press away from Miami Beach as they were busy down in Homestead to the south which became "ground zero" and they had clean up crews out trying to clean the sand off of Collins Avenue in an attempt to save the Tourist Season of 1992. Note a big tree down at the "Old Mary Pickford Estate" a block away kept FPL from being able to hook up our electric for days and days ... was a big tree........   

Trees pulled up sidewalks on Miami Beach, Ficus Trees ripped sidewalks away as they lay at precarious positions across streets, lawns and sometimes shmushing parts of houses. Yes, shmushing would be the right word. Pine trees on Pine Tree Drive slashed into a friend's house... those are big pine trees that were planted as a wind break by John Collins to protect his mango, avocado and grapefruit trees back before Miami Beach became trendy in the 1920s.

And, the Hebrew Academy lucked out and stood strong a block from the ocean. I'm sure there were some minor repairs. At that time my kid's went to Chabad which was a block from the bay... both schools stood strong.  The school is in the bottom of the above pic, between the golf course and the ocean on the shores of Lake Pancoast :)

Living on a barrier island is a risk that we take ... living anywhere near the coast in Hurricane Country is a risk and that coastline stretches from Brownsville, Texas to the coast of Maine. Anyone living anywhere near that coast line is prone to some form of a tropical or sub-tropical storm. 

There's the not so up close view of my world .... where I rode out Hurricane Andrew, where I grew up, worked, raised kids, shopped til I dropped at Publix on Dade Blvd or on Lincoln Road where my daddy's office was ... a block from the ocean. Just a dot on a map, on a sliver of land that was but a dream in the mind of Carl Fisher ...on what was a mangrove island on a sandbar ...

And, it's worth it..... 

This could be you on any given night as the sunsets if you lived near Hollywood Beach, Florida:

A picture I took on my last walk before going north for a while. That's real folks... not a postcard. My favorite place to walk and talk and watch the sunset and if the water is warm enough... take a quick swim in the beautiful, blue tropical water.

So, if you live in Galveston or Miami or Savannah (I wish) or Charleston or Wilmington NC or Delaware.... or places north like Coney Island or Cape Cod... remember...worst case scenarios do come true so prepare your home, take your best shot keeping it safe from the wind and the waves and prepare for the worst, hope for the best and enjoy the beautiful breeze that comes with a life at the edge of the hurricane coast. 

Just hope that breeze doesn't turn into a steady, evil wind . . .

Nothing much going on in the tropics this morning... some tropical rain on it's way north out of the Caribbean towards South Florida. Some tropical waves westbound against a strong East wind shearing off the tops of the thunderclouds and bringing a halt to any tropical formation. 

Put it in motion:

http://www.intellicast.com/Storm/Hurricane/AtlanticSatellite.aspx?animate=true

Nothing happening, however it is very good to note that the models that predicted both Alberto and Beryl were on the money and did a very good job of predicting those storms ...so ... hopefully they will be good at predicting Tropical Storm Chris. Either way, you know i will be watching, tracking, analyzing data and blogging here at Hurricane Harbor :)

Besos Bobbi

Ps... Playing with my phone here before I switch it over soon and get a new one. Top of my to do list...  another goal for June is to actually see Coney Island Beach, up close and personal the way Hurricane Irene did last year when she fizzled out just as she was about to come ashore.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Kg84KAMuMA (Seminole Wind, great song...)