Dangers of Inland Flooding. TWC Throws a "Prep Party" Make a Plan Now...Hurricane Season Begins in 3 Days!

(if you can find a new Publix Hurricane Guide.. grab it and read it!!)

I asked a question a few days back and Phil Ferro from Channel 7 in Miami answered it.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152261635472933&set=a.10150194761547933.315164.529397932&type=1&theater

Earliest rainy season start: May 18th.
Latest rainy season: June 3rd
According to the NWS the rainy season this in Miami began on May 26th.

That brings with it a new danger that people need to take seriously... Lightning Safety.

http://miami.cbslocal.com/2014/05/29/men-struck-by-lighting-in-pompano-beach/

http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/

In reality in Miami it rains every afternoon this time of year around the time that children get out of school and you can go to any elementary school and see children racing towards their parent's cars. Or.. you can see children walking home in the rain... and the thunder. It's part of life in Miami. I know, because I grew up in Miami and spent more than half of my life there. The sky turns purple, dark, dark purple and lightning bolts slam into the ground just as you are about to leave school.. walk home... or wait outside for a ride. 

This picture is online at 

But it really does look like that and I have spent way too many days sitting by the Bay watching a line roll in.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Miami

I'm not saying it's the smartest thing to do .. but it's what Miami kids grow up doing..

You can be at Disney and they will stop all rides until the lightning threat is over. I got stuck in Nola a few months back while a line rolled through. Planes stop. Rides stop. Miami kids do not stop... for good or for bad,... we are as used to it as kids up north are of walking on ice or trudging through snow. In reality.. it's dangerous. Miami kids get a sense early on for how close a storm is and when they need to take cover.

I took this picture a few years back in North Miami Beach...waiting for my son to come home on the school bus.. 

Back in  August of 2008 I was paying a fortune for a bus service to take my kids from NMB to Miami Beach to the Day Camp. During rains related to Tropical Storm Fay the bus driver drove up on the lawn so that my son wouldn't have to walk through the flooded streets. I'm still grateful. Of course half the family was out side taking pictures and my daughter drove back from Orlando in a Tropical Storm... but still it was nice to have door to door service. 

A look back.. 

http://hurricaneharbor.blogspot.com/2008/08/fast-fridays-post-on-fay-and-flooding.html

It floods in Miami often when it rains... it floods way worse on Miami Beach when it rains.

http://hurricaneharbor.blogspot.com/2008/08/flooding-problem-from-fay-updates.html

I miss Miami rain :(

It rained in Raleigh today. An off and off misting drizzle that made the locals nervous. It was not RAIN.. it was just misting.............off and on...............all day. 

Compare and contrast... Raleigh Rainy Day ... Hmmmm

It's all a matter of perspective I suppose...

With regard to Hurricane Prep ...TWC is having a PREP RALLY tomorrow on air.. A good idea, however I think it's a little too cute even for me. 

If you live in South Florida this Sunday is a good time to go to a program that entertains and educates at the same time.

FREE ADMISSION

It doesn't get easier or better than this... GO!

You can go from there to Walmart and buy hurricane supplies that are Tax Free. 

http://www.flgov.com/2014/01/27/gov-scott-announces-15-day-sales-tax-holiday-for-hurricane-preparedness-supplies/

In North Carolina there were also warnings... though very few events publicizing Hurricane Preparation.

http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/05/25/3886905/mccrory-nc-resident-should-prepare.html. A short article. 

Nothing special going in Raleigh that I could find...sadly. I'll explain why that's sad in a few minutes.

In Wilmington a city on the Cape Fear River not far from Wrightsville Beach there is a program on June 26th for Children. Good idea.. they get hit more often than Miami does in any given year.

http://www.whatsonwilmington.com/event.php?id=16532

Here's a good post on what really happened in Raleigh after Fran hit the coast of NC near Wilmington.

http://www.cs.duke.edu/~rodger/fran.html

Here is a preview of a wonderful day by day account of what it was to live in Raleigh with trees down, power out and a good amount of inland flooding after Hurricane Fran. 

"Day before: Thursday September 5, 1996

We heard Hurricane Fran was on her way, but would probably go east of us. Hurricane Bertha hit us a few weeks ago and we had had worse thunderstorms so we weren't too concerned. We didn't bring in anything that was sitting outside. Around 9pm the wind started howling outside, and we realized it was going to be pretty scary, but still weren't too concerned so we went to bed around 11pm. It was raining hard.

Day 1: Friday, September 6, 1996

Midnight:

We were woken up when the power went out (we have things that make noise when they lose power). We could hear the wind howling a lot but we went back to sleep.

Around 1:30am

We realized we were both wide awake. The wind was howling so loud that you couldn't hear the rain coming down. We could hear trees falling. Thud. That one was far away. Thud. That one was close! We got up and tried to look outside. Thomas shined a flash light out our kitchen and we saw a huge tree fallen in our back yard. At this point we realized that this was a really serious storm! We went down to our laundry room and water was pouring under the door. The laundry room already had water covering the floor. We put towels up against the door to slow the flow. Thomas wanted to go outside to put something up against the door but I wouldn't let him. We figured later that if we would have opened the door, water would have poured in. There was nothing we could do, so we went back to bed to wait out the storm. Of course we couldn't sleep at all. The wind would die a little and then it would whip back up and then trees would fall. Finally around 4am it quieted down and we went to sleep. We found out later that at that point the eye of the hurricane was over us."

The picture below is posted on his site. It is a picture of what his backyard looked like.... 

I interviewed a man yesterday who worked at a car lot next to Crabtree Creek. He went to work, because no one thought the hurricane would affect Raleigh far inland, and he watched from his office window as the creek rose and rose and began to spill over into the car lots that lined Old Wake Forest Road. In real time he watched over 20 cars become submerged under the water. Another person I spoke to worked at Crabtree Mall which became cut off from their parking lot and workers were trapped inside unable to get to their cars...or home.

From Wikipedia:

"Flooding risk

Crabtree Valley Mall is situated next to Crabtree Creek, a tributary of the Neuse River that begins near Morrisville and winds through Umstead State Park as well as western and north central Raleigh. As the watershed around the mall become increasingly covered with impervious parking lots, the creek floods easily following major storms. Such floods occurred frequently in the mall's early years, but diminished with the construction of Lake Crabtree and large retaining basins upstream of the mall.

Heavy rains caused by the remnants of Tropical Storm Alberto flooded the lower level parking lots of the mall on June 14, 2006, as well as a great deal of the bottom level of anchor store Sears, forcing the mall to close for the day. A similar situation occurred with Hurricane Fran in 1996, when flood waters flowed through the first floor of the mall and caused a few stores to remain closed for nearly two months."

http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-blogs/weathermatrix/raleigh-flashes-1/3487

This article from 2006 with pictures of submerged cars shows..nothing really has changed. And, if Raleigh gets a storm like Hurricane Hazel or Hurricane Fran the oak trees will snap in the wind, crack into pieces all over the deck and onto the rooftops and ....roads will flood. It will be a mess. It's happened before, it will happen again. And, yet... no one here seems to have that concern that people down at the coast have ... 

Because everyone knows TWC goes to beach cities like Miami and Palm Beach and Myrtle Beach and Wrightsville Beach... but the hurricanes keep on going after the film crews have moved on which is what happened when Hugo took Charleston and kept on going.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/hugo/

INLAND FLOODING is one of the biggest problems in any storm ... any where and yet people inland do not have the same concern for hurricanes as the people down at the coast.

Raleigh, for example, is "THE CITY OF OAKS" and well I have to tell you... oaks do not bend like palm trees. They crash through people's homes in the middle of the night and people die... never knowing what hit them. That is as real as I can get here.

So... if you live anywhere within this Hurricane Map.. pay attention because tornadoes happen, inland flooding happens and oak trees that go crack in the night happen. 

Half of the people killed in Hurricane Fran ...were killed by falling trees far from the beach.

http://www.ecu.edu/renci/stormstolife/fran/human.html

One last preview of an article that you need to read:

"Fran killed 24 people in North Carolina. Half of these victims were killed by falling trees. In the Raleigh area alone, hundreds of trees fell, and many of them fell on houses, cars, and people. WRAL reported on one family that spent the storm in a parking garage because it was safer than staying in their mobile home. Indeed, Mary Bland Reaves, like many others, was killed when a falling tree crushed her mobile home. But some other Raleigh residents were more lucky. Thao Do, got up in the middle of the night only minutes before a heavy tree crashed through the roof and landed on the bed where she had been sleeping. Others, like Patti Clinton and brothers Evan and Eric Hamo experienced similar close calls.

In addition to falling trees, Fran also brought heavy rain to Raleigh. Many people had tried to escape Fran’s reach by evacuating to Raleigh, but once there, they were stranded by rising flood water. Crabtree Creek rose 16 feet, cresting at 7 feet above flood stage. Guests at the nearby Sheraton Hotel found themselves surrounded by 6 feet of water. A heart patient and a diabetic, both needing medical attention, were trapped in the hotel until Ray Williams and Lupton Pittman braved the waters and brought back wetsuits, emergency items, and a canoe.

Similar rescues were happening in other cities, too. Candido Suarez, a police detective in Jacksonville, used a Jet-ski to rescue 20 people from a flooded street. In Bladen County, a pregnant woman called just after midnight during the storm. Four different emergency crews cut their way through fallen trees for 53 minutes before they reached the expectant mother and took her to the hospital to deliver her baby. Both her and the baby were saved."

When TWC has their "Prep Rally" tomorrow... pay attention. Listen up.. it could happen to you sometime this year. And, may I remind people that most people in NYC before Hurricane Sandy didn't think it would really happen to them... until it did!

Take it seriously. The 2014 Atlantic Hurricane Season is coming to a town near you in 3 Days. 

Besos Bobbi

Ps http://www.weather.com/video/anaridis-maria-on-hurricane-prep-rally-49228

And............if there are any typos here I'll fix them later or in the morning. I've had a horrible migraine all day. Not sure why.. maybe it's the "rain" (smiling) or the barometer dropping or ... who knows. Easier to predict the weather sometimes than a migraine. But, I did want to post on this because as we inch closer to the start of the Hurricane Season people do read up on things they need to know and Inland Flooding is a problem we all need to pay more attention to before it happens.

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/mhx/Floyd/Flooding.php