Irma Death Toll Rises from Georgia to the Islands. Recovery and Thoughts on Jose. From Cajun Navy to Chabad Centers We Are One Human Nation. Contribute What You Can ...Where You Can as Many Stores Will Add What You Donate to Charity. Hurricane Season NOT Over. Will Ophelia or Phillipe or Rina Come To Your Town in October?

Today in the Tropics.

Loops and maps on top.

Thoughts and videos at the bottom.

Jose looping below.

Irma is still causing problems in the SE

That purple circle is bad weather.

Rain, wind.

NOT much rain.

But in the land of pine trees...

..they come down fast.

5 Day Rainfall 

Ha check out Canada..

Tropical moisture still on the move.

Note how many areas could show development.

Not showing the cone today.

Weather is everywhere in the SE.

Nuff said.

An image I found online.

Before and after.

Pieced it together.

Chaser video and Google Maps.

Why people live there?

Paradise most days.

Beautiful.

A friend of mine in Augusta posted this today.

Her power is out.

She's barely posting.

She wanted to get this message out.

Well I'll add... down the road.

Thoughts and videos below.

Jose....You gonna loop around out there forever? Where you gonna go? Do you go from being a looper to an ocean spinner? Most of America is praying you take the easy way out and go out to sea. Time will tell. With long term loopers you just got to sit em out patiently and watch what upper level patterns evolve while they are doing loops in the Atlantic. Let me say this about that.........  way better Jose is looping out in the Atlantic than moving over South Florida while they are trying to clean up. The last thing you need is even a strong thunderstorm that slams parts of your home that were weakened from the Hurricane. Often that set up is like the straw that breaks the camel's back. My friend's house during Andrew held up pretty well on Miami Beach, but the East facing window broke weeks later after an extremely strong, typical... South Florida thunder storm. See that is the problem, we don't go back to a quiet weather pattern.

It's summertime in Florida even though they be selling Pumpkin Spice Lattes at Starbucks. Hot, humid and the only time the air moves is when a big thunderstorm is coming in. Cooler days are far away... think November. When Hurricane Wilma hit South Florida it was getting into late October when a few cool fronts blow through. Wilma caught one of those early cold fronts and after Wilma it was way cooler and more comfortable than after Andrew in late August. And, that set up that brought Wilma to South Florida may bring Ophelia, Phillipe or Rina later this year. Yes, I mean that and no that is NOT hype or dramatic hyperbole. That's life in the tropics during Hurricane Season. Kind of like how you feel up north in February when you just want the snow storms to end and the cold weather to go away. You just want to stop having to wear boots, coats and you just want to put on your flip flops and feel sunshine

Typical October Hurricane Track

And that's something I want to talk about here. Stop asking why people live in Miami or Naples or the Florida Keys. We are not stupid, we know who we are and how we like to live and are are actually quite smart. We figure the odds and know that once every few years (or every twenty if you get lucky) a hurricane blows through. You clean up and life goes on. And, often you get very lucky and don't see a Major Hurricane for fifty or sixty years; that's pretty much a lifetime of living in paradise. A few months of putting life back together is better than living 40 or 50 years in places that do not resonate with you. There are towns far from Oklahoma that have gotten bad tornadoes and the whole mid section of the country is prone to heavy floods in the Springtime. I had a friend when I lived in LA who grew up in Ohio with her family home by the river. She told me what life was like on the river and how often it came up over the banks and flooded their home. Being a tropical girl used to when the wind howls in September the idea of the river coming up and running into your house seemed crazy. She smiled and said "well the river does go down you know and then you clean up" and I'll add life goes on. I can't think of too many places in this great and beautiful nation that could not have some sort of natural disaster. So rather than bitch and complain about "crazy people that live down there by the water" reach into your pocket and know but for the grace of God that too could be you. Gas explosions that take out whole blocks, 100 hundred year flash floods in places like Ellicot City where I'm sure many there felt safer than living down on the coast. https://www.weather.gov/lwx/EllicottCityFlood2016

And everyone in Florida isn't rich or famous like the people you see on TV shows. We actually have quite a bit of simple, good folk who live in small towns and never get to Miami or Naples. They live down by the water, they fish and it's actually quite Southern. You don't get that vibe on South Beach but trust me it's about as Southern and Country as it gets. Places up the coast North of Tampa and NW of Orlando that live in rural towns. Remember that classic movie Doc Hollywood was filmed in Micanopy Florida. You might want to check it out sometimes, it's a beautiful place; actually quite artsy and picturesque. Sometimes the wind blows...

And Irma found some of those places you aren't hearing about in Southwest Florida. Yes it hit Marco Island and it grabbed the headlines. Try checking out places like Everglades City that's a paradise for people who like to get away from the cement jungle they feel Miami is and who like to fish and be close to nature. Everglades City isn't for everyone, but for those who love it ... it is everything they love.  Yes Jacksonville and Charleston get all the media, so I'm trying to remind you of the scope of this ongoing disaster known as the 2017 Atlantic Hurricane Season. It's not over but it should help the rest of you not yet affected to properly prepare and buy more than 1 pack of AA batteries for your radio and storing some extra gas or cash somewhere safe in case you need it.

This video is before Irma and this story is about what it was like there during Hurricane Irma. 

Irma made landfall above.

Around the red circle.

Another blog explains why...

...they be so different than the other Keys.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/weather/hurricanes/everglades-city-cut-off-by-flooding/2337032

I found this last night and it's a great over view of the Lower Keys where Hurricane Irma made landfall. It shows the actual Keys, maps of the Islands and lifestyle people buy into when they retire to a piece of paradise they can afford. Life there may sound pricey to some of you but it was one of the only affordable places to live down near Key West where people live in one room studios in old Conch homes not fixed up similar to how many live on a sailboat... meaning really simple keeping only what you need but enjoying the view and even those one room studios are a fortune. So many live down on some of the nearby Keys where life can be a mix of rugged frontier sort of life and a well built, beautiful home built to retire and live out your golden years in a place you always dreamed of living. Fisherman, service staff such as waitresses and chefs and school teachers don't live in Key West if they can't afford it and they commute up from places like Cudjoe or Ramrod Key. Note the videos and yes some of those places look like location shots for a movie based on a Carl Hiaasen novel.



I worry on how the school held up and note if you watched til the end the older kids go to Key West High School up the road. Then there's a video of Ramrod Key below.



Below is a video posted online from Cudjoe Key and it sure looks like Cudjoe to me.



No life in paradise isn't for everyone. But then life in Atlanta isn't for everyone and outside Atlanta today 3 people died in Georgia from falling pines crashing through their homes or Irma related accidents. Who knows how high the total will be by the time all of the missing are found. And, when I talk on a death toll I am talking even up in Sandy Springs, Georgia where people feel they are safe from hurricanes and heavy snow storms. And speaking of SANDY this season isn't over so those of you living up in Queens dreaming of what it must be like to live down in the Keys if only you had the money or the guts to pick up and relocate... Ophelia or Rina may find you later in the Hurricane Season.

We are all in this today. To steal a saying from my second or third home Key West we are "one human family" so reach into your pocket and whether you give a dollar at Belk when you buy those cute new winter boots or at Kroger just do it. All those dollars add up and if you have more then give more. Some of that money one day could come back to you as Kharma is like that. What you give at some point you get back but we don't do it wanting anything back we do it to be the change in the world we want to see..  to make a difference.

Red Cross is a great organization that is prepared to jump into action being well trained and seemingly everywhere when we need them. I'm associated with the Chabad movement that opened up 25 of their Chabad Centers across South Florida inviting people in their community without power to come, use whatever power they had and many made BBQs I'm guessing with meat they had stored in their freezers. I know there are many great organizations doing the same thing and if you know some Tweet them or put your links on Facebook. This is who I am so I know what my friends are doing to help others who are in need in the most organic way they can; sharing their power ( generator ) and telling people to come for coffee, charge their phones, talk and maybe have some BBQ.

This is not just a news story from my world, some of those people who operate these centers are my personal friends. 

http://collive.com/show_news.rtx?id=47276&alias=25-florida-chabads-open-doors

So be it the Cajun Navy in Harvey or Chabad in South Florida or your own Catholic Church or a mission you know that is reliable and trustworthy when asked give whether it's a $1 at Kroger or $5 at Belk, just do it please.

https://jewishgatorcom.clhosting.org/templates/section_cdo/aid/3782240

I'll say this about fake news. Every time you see that video on Facebook that's been around for 10 years but now posted again everywhere that shows a gator walking through some place in Florida NOT after Irma but it is tagged as Irma put a quarter in a jar and give the money to UF Chabad the home of the Gator Nation for many. They are awesome. http://www.jewishgator.com/

I'll update later today with more information on Jose. It's out there looping, let's not wake up a sleeping dog right now. Watch the coverage on TWC and give what you can and remember the Hurricane Season is not over but you can start preparing now if you have not already. As for Irma she has died out finally but her rain remains and her devastation is just being discovered. It's raining as I read this in Raleigh, a gray steady rain and I can see the tops of pine trees swaying a bit. See in Carolina I get tropical weather and an occasionally snow shows up. The rain formed in Africa and moved across the Atlantic Ocean, though the Caribbean and up through Florida to rain on my grass this morning. Kind of amazing and why we are often so amazed at hurricanes spinning across the satellite loops and more often than not they swim out to sea. Irma did not and now we clean up. My kids I believe are headed back to rejoin the rest of the family in South Florida today. My son-in-law just arrived with many first responders who drove down in a convoy with Fema trucks. From the Cajun Nation to my Satmar son-in-law Yoely married to his Chabad wife we should all be one human nation doing what we can to help each other through tragedy. 

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on Twitter