Will a Major Hurricane Hit the Miami Broward WPB Area This Year? I Hope Not... But it Could They Are Overdue for the EYE of a Hurricane.

 

This is a map made by Brian McNoldy

https://twitter.com/BMcNoldy

He's excellent to follow.

If you live in South Florida....

...or anywhere during the Hurricane Season.

While things are quiet and not much is going on I'm trying to put links to sites to use and people to follow on social media who are excellent sources of reliable information. In his case, he is prone to unique, original ways of presenting valuable material that helps you understand better some of the finer points of a particular situation be it a current set up or historical information.   If you were playing a paint online game you'd be trying to figure out what color line to draw across the Miami to West Palm Beach metropolitan area and that's concerning as that area is overdue for such a hurricane.  Many in Miami and the Ft. Lauderdale area would argue that and point to all the trees down and their roof damage from Hurricane Irma in 2017 and that's because they fail to remember they did not get the EYE of Irma nor the brunt of it's power, they had all that damage from a brush with Irma that made landfall in the Florida Keys but due to it's immense size delivered a wicked punch to North Miami Beach, Walnut Creek and other places far to the North and East of where Irma made landfall. A similar smaller storm would not have impacted the Miami area if it moved quickly through Marathon in the Florida Keys so remember with hurricanes not only strength but size matters! 

Also what is worth remembering is that the general Miami area was in the Cone often for both Irma and Dorian and Matthew scared Miamians greatly even if the cone showed it could stay offshore. The NHC did a good job with those hurricanes and they did veer away from a visit to Miami. This is a very DANGEROUS set up as what happens after these sort of brushes with danger is that people begin to believe Miami is safe and all the hurricanes will veer way from the coast as Dorian and Matthew did but many such as the 1926 and 1928 Hurricanes did not, nor did Betsy, Katrina nor Andrew that made a due West beeline for Miami and never took the road that David did in 1979 when it took aim at Miami and then veered up the coast. Why is this important? I knew many people in Miami during Andrew that refused to believe that Andrew would not do what David did and it would go somewhere else. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1928_Okeechobee_hurricane

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_David similar but made landfall along the N Central coastline.

Miami is a city that always has new people who have moved into the area and never experienced a Hurricane. Old times tell them about Donna and Betsy and Andrew and they think they will be fine, they will not be if a Major Hurricane makes landfall at Hollywood Beach or Aventura just North of Miami but all part of the same metropolitan area demographically and otherwise. Also we have a huge transitory population of people who are they college students or employed in the HUGE hotels and restaurant business that makes up a giant slice of the Miami economy!

Sadly Andrew taught me that the worst case scenario can and does happen. For years I kept this poster in my living room as a reminder that the worst case scenario can play out and a major hurricane can and will make a landfall in your living room if you live in Florida long enough.  Note that also goes for Savannah, Jacksonville and Tampa! 

Orange ... high pressure. 

H for Huge High.

A nice wave over Africa... 

There's online chatter on something in 10 days or so...

.. maybe down in the Caribbean headed North.

Or by the Yucatan.... or out in the Atlantic.

Models keep showing long term possibilities.

But nothing expected to form for the next 5 days.

Use this time wisely for Hurricane Preparation.

This IS Hurricane Season.

June Hurricanes have happened making landfall...

... up from the Carib towards Florida.

Currently the huge High Pressure is in place, so use this time wisely. As I said in a previous blog, my friend Sharon was sure we would get a hurricane in the very dead summer of 1992 when the first named storm didn't show up until Mid August named Andrew. Sharon rinsed out bottles of Publix Soda and filled them up with tap water and stored them away and bought inexpensive bottled water when on sale. When Andrew changed course for Miami, as she thought it would do as she didn't trust that weak cold front in August, she had close to 80 bottles of water stored in her garage to use for drinking or washing. After Hurricane Andrew on Miami Beach far from the eye but getting strong impressive winds, we had no water for a long time and we had no electric even longer and we had no cable to watch TWC until late November. 

Be like Sharon, don't be that guy at Publix buying perishable deli and ice cream because you are sure this is just a big scare and the next big Major Hurricane aiming for Miami will turn away and crash into South Carolina as Matthew did......  Prepare now! Buy canned food, water, non-perishable food and stock up on your medications. Don't be that person left at Publix who went too late and is standing at the empty aisles staring at cans of oysters and sardines. 

Thanks for your patience while I was on vacation in Miami visiting my family and attending a wedding for Sharon's son. It was a long road trip after a few days in Charlotte for business before the trip to Miami, a stop on the way back in Savannah and I'm finally back in Raleigh. I learned years back from friends of mine who worked at the NHC that the best time to usually take a vacation is actually early June, before the season ramps up :) Learn from the best ... 

I should be updating every day from now on so follow me as we cruise into the height of the Hurricane Season when SAL begins to let go of his dusty hold on the Atlantic and the Huge High Pressure suddenly fades away and yellow circles pop up South of Cuba or off the coast of Florida in the Bahamas and as always near the Yucatan. 

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on Twitter and Instagram.

Ps. A dirty little secret is that Miami Beach was trashed by Hurricane Andrew, all the street signs, store awnings and often AC units on condos crashed to the ground below. Massive Ficus Trees were uprooted with most of the yard, pine trees on Pine Tree Drive fell onto homes. My neighbors roof on Flamingo Drive took flight and landed in tact in the back yard of a house on Pine Tree Drive near 41st Street. Bits and pieces of plastic from the Dry Cleaners, the Used Bookstore and Epicure then on Arthur Godfrey Road landed all across my parent's house on 37th and Royal Palm Avenue. My neighbor next door, a photographer who was working for Newsweek got back from covering Homestead and asked what happened on Miami Beach as it wasn't mentioned in the news. As Andrew approached Miami, just before it made that itsy bitsy dip to the South that saved most of downtown Miami... it's approaching wind and wild surf took aim on Miami Beach. I'm grateful that despite all that wild damage (we had no Traffic Lights on 41st Street for half a year, they all were gone with the wind) we were spared the horrific damage the eye did in Homestead. So while thinking on all the debris you had from Irma remember it made landfall near Big Pine Key NOT in Miami nor Hollywood Florida! Prepare now! Use this "quiet" time wisely!!

All the damage in the old blog below was from Miami Beach. They hired people fast to clean it up and laid low and tried to stay out of the news and to get back up and running for the 1992/93 Tourist Season. They were not as lucky in 1926... but that's another blog.

http://hurricaneharbor.blogspot.com/2012/08/hurricane-andrew-look-back-from-miami.html

Yes most buildings were "fine" but everything else went whoosh with the wind... and that beautiful Polynesian style roof some friend of mine had... small square houses do best in a hurricane in Florida... no power for weeks, no cable for months... debris sat until late October after the Andrew Hurricane.

Hurricane History. Long Read. Watch the Videos.. Listen to the WIND... Hurricanes & The Florida Keys. Often What Happens in Florida Doesn't Stay in Florida ... It Ends up In NC NJ NY NE...

Can you name that Hurricane?

There really is nothing new under the sun and that is especially true when we are discussing weather in the tropics. In truth tropical storms as well as the Big Daddy of tropical systems the Hurricane do visit far away beaches in New England and on Long Island but what starts in the tropics doesn't always stay in the tropics. And whatever has happened in the past will repeat itself in the future with some minor variation so if you don't learn from history you really are doomed to have your little island paradise blown away by the next Major Hurricane. 

Now days we track online and follow the hurricanes on our Smart Phones yet as much as we have changed the way we follow hurricanes with incredible satellite imagery and models that get better at nailing down the track the hurricane remains the same. Rain, wind, squalls moving in tandem in a storm that is spinning like a top traveling across an ocean looking for a place to make landfall. Sometimes a weak tropical wave battling wind shear and dry SAL manages to pull itself together just enough to attain named status while the NHC debates downgrading it to depression status. A few days later it pulls together once past the SAL and the wind shear and develops rapidly changing direction suddenly and taking aim at South Florida and the Miami area from the East. The picture above is from a book that talked on the Great Labor Day Hurricane yet it could just as easily have been talking about Hurricane Andrew. 

Above was 1935

Below was 1960

Hurricane Donna made landfall in Marathon in the Florida Keys before going on to hit multiple cities in her long race to victory that ended up with people in New York getting hit by the same hurricane that made landfall in the Florida Keys. Before the Florida Keys it threatened the islands and flirted with Cuba, but for this blog's purpose we are focusing on the Florida Keys. In 1935 the Labor Day Hurricane made landfall close to Donna's landfall point but a bit further to the North around Long Key. Hurricane Betsy in 1965 made landfall in the Upper Keys though if you check it out online you may read it hit Louisiana. The point here is that history is often local from the perspective of the person viewing the history. I typed "Hurricane Donna Florida Keys" into the browser and hit images and multiple images appeared including one of a lady standing in what looks like her winter coat on the high steps of her front porch and I thought "no that's wrong" as Google found "Hurricane Donna" but Hurricane Donna was also New York's hurricane to remember. 

In Miami people worried on Hurricane Betsy and they prepared the same way we do now days even though that was a half a century ago. Yes, our satellite imagery is better and we have models that though they argue often give us a better handle on changing steering currents. We sample the air around the storm and well I'd like to think if we had the tools in 1965 that we have now we would have been able to forecast Betsy's loops. Then again maybe not as hurricanes by their very nature are erratic and difficult to pin down. That is why people spend lifetimes studying Atlantic Hurricanes as if they are looking for lost treasure or the Holy Grail. The real Holy Grail is Intensity Forecasting, the kind that would predict Hurricane Aletta's sudden intensification to Category 4 from seemingly out of nowhere. 

Before Hurricane Irma ever took aim on the Florida Keys after flirting with the Cuban coast history books are filled with the same scenario with regard to multiple hurricanes that did the same thing. Yes, each is different in some way but the track of a hurricane moving slowly blocked to it's North by a strong Bermuda High slowing down as it approaches and waiting patiently for the Bermuda High to give it's a pass and move a bit to the East so that like the old "Open Sesame" story the Hurricane suddenly lifts NW or WNW towards the Florida Keys.  Back then we didn't have the models we have now and yet even today the same drama holds tight as we hear the models show Hurricane Irma will make landfall near Miami and then Homestead and then the Florida Keys and only in the rear view mirror to we learn there is a place named Cudjoe Key. But to people on Big Pine Key it hit their key and others will look back and say it hit the "Lower Keys" and someone in Key West who lost their roof when part of an old banyan tree fell onto it will tell their grandchildren about the time Hurricane Irma hit Key West. In the part of the Florida Keys where people are trying to put their lives back together while filling out miles of forms they would probably ask Hurricane who when hearing someone ask on Hurricane Georges. Irma is still the Hurricane of the Hour in the Florida Keys.

Cyclone Jim above in Georges.

Hurricane Irma below.

We have changed the way we track and the way we forecast even at times forecasting development before the first bands of a storm begin to come together. Our models hit the mark sometimes and other times an old time forecaster who knows climo and hurricane history does a better job than the models. Sometimes the models are wonderful, sometimes they are crappy but the one commonality is the Hurricane brings the possibility of death and destruction with it as it moves towards landfall. And, a long tracking Hurricane such as Donna makes landfall many times and takes the trouble from the tropics all the way up the Mid Atlantic into NY and beyond. Let's hope this year is not a Sandy sort of year as there are already many parallels to 2012 weather wise. Again it's hard to remember that far back but Hurricane Sandy slammed into Cuba and from their perspective it was their storm not New York and New Jersey's storm.  You don't need to speak Spanish to understand the story shown below in the video after Hurricane Sandy hit Cuba showing people up in NY a preview of what they were to expect. 

Back to the Florida Keys..

In my mind Hurricane Donna and Hurricane Betsy were Miami hurricanes yet they just grazed by Miami toppling tall pines trees and depositing sand all over Collins Avenue or smashing out plate glass windows in resorts that once had beautiful ocean views. But what I do remember most is that Hurricane Donna was a slow mover that rattled Miami's nerves as the end game seemed as uncertain as did Hurricane Irma's end game. It's nice to say that the NHC nailed the forecast with Hurricane Irma but did they really? Yes and no is the answer as they nailed it would impact South Florida but the "Cone" got pulled back and forth by several hundred miles before we knew 100% who was getting the eye of Irma. And, trust me the EYE is the part that makes the difference as most of South Florida, West Florida and North Florida had impacts from Irma but no where was it as deadly and destructive as Cudjoe Key and Big Pine. And, by the way Big Pine Key is way bigger and more densely populated than Long Key where the 1935 Hurricane made landfall on what was basically a tent city where temporary workers were given jobs by FDR after camping out in DC begging for jobs. So, yeah score one for FDR he gave them jobs in Paradise but Paradise can turn really ugly when a hurricane or a volcano blows it's top. I'd still rather deal directly with a Major Hurricane than a Volcano and a lava flow crunching down and obliterating my house and red, shiny mustang convertible.

The book I read yesterday that I picked up in one of the Florida Key's best book stores was riveting in it's old school description of the approach of a hurricane as it was jam packed with great detail on Florida Keys history. Jam packed as in old history as in does anyone in Florida even remember buying Sea Grape Jam? Does anyone remember what Bud and Mary's looked like back when? Does anyone remember when the Keys were quiet and traffic on the Overseas Highway wasn't the way it is now? Sea Grape Jam or Jelly is what Scuppernong Jam is to people in North Carolina. It's a local delicacy you take back to the relatives who live Up North. May I suggest next time you decide to go to the Islamorada Fish House or any Fish Restaurant down in the Keys you stop at Hooked on Books Mile Marker 81.9 and browse the racks and sit a spell and look through the books and decide which one you want to buy. Spoiler Alert you will want to buy MANY of them but many are on the Used racks for half price or even a dollar. I picked up a signed autograph book by James W. Hall who was my Literature Professor at FIU teaching classes on a Graduate Level on American Literature. Once upon the time before AOL and the Internet my grammar was way better ;)

http://www.hookedonbooksfloridakeys.com

There are some interesting stories in the book.

Take Craig Key for instance.

Craig Key was a town on a highway.

The Overseas Highway

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Key

It's a small spot on the map.

It's shown below by the red dot.

Up close it's shown below.

No matter how good our models are and how great our forecast is the one thing you can count on is that a hurricane, especially a Major Hurricane, slams into a small island with the fury of Atomic Bombs, and the slamming into it goes on for however long it takes for the hurricane to move on. Sometimes a hurricane slows down and crawls and other times it moves fast like Hurricane Andrew. Either way it leaves behind a trail of broken dreams, destroyed homes, destroyed lives and sometimes a high death toll. Whether the hurricane causes flooding as we saw in Houston or it sand blasts an island the way Maria did, it's a natural disaster that we try to forecast and explain to the public beseeching people to follow evacuation orders and we hope for the best, pray like we never prayed and try somehow to make it through the night while listening to the howling of the wind. We hunker down and in that dark, scary, vitally alive night no one really cares whether the EURO was right or the GFS scored a quirky win. Maybe far away in some academic environment students are debating the models still from the safety of their dorm room in another part of the country and on message boards somewhere someone will try and defend the GFS or tout how good the EURO was with this hurricane vs the last one. But trust me in the dark of the night listening to the wind you pray to survive and pray you have a business to go to work to in the morning; no one gives a rat's ass about which model was right or wrong in the middle of a Major Hurricane.

Turn your speaker up all the way.

Imagine that sound for 2 or 3 hours.

Imagine that sound while the house is shaking.

Imagine that house while worrying there is flooding.

Just imagine.

Our models are better.

Our satellites are clearer.

Radar is better.

But....

A hurricane is still a hurricane in the end.

We slice and dice them.

We study them.

It's academic to some of us... 

..a passion for chasers.

We take the data.

We study the data.

But the Hurricanes still howl in the night.

From far away they are beautiful.

Our new tools are awesome.

Whether the Euro was right.

Whether the EURO was wrong.

The end result is the same.

Destruction and death.

So during these quiet days of June when the EPAC is busy and the Atlantic is not it's a good time to think on what you will need to get through the 2018 Hurricane Season. Yes, there is talk of El Nino and there is talk of cool water near Africa. We have to worry on those storms that weakly make their way across the Atlantic battling shear and dry air who sometimes find a spot close in to become a Category 4 or Category 5 Hurricane. And, in a year like this it's important to remember over and over what starts in the tropics doesn't always stay in the tropics and the Mid Atlantic and the East Coast could be in trouble come September or October. We have come a long way from old black and white news reels with eerie science fiction sound effects but whether we watch old black and white news reels or color video the wind howls, the rain falls down endlessly as sheets of wind carry your neighbors roof one tile at a time down the street. 

There are some great books out there on hurricanes, some wild websites and some awesome old news papers online. Read through them, look at the pictures and remember in the end it's not about the models but about the hurricane. If the NHC puts up watches and warnings for your area do what they tell you to do like your life depends on it. Trust me ...your life does depend on it.

https://www.floridamemory.com/blog/tag/hurricanes/

Good sites to follow are:

www.spaghettimodels.com

www.hurricanecity.com

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/news/historical-hurricanes/ Picture below from this site.

That's a lot of landfalling hurricanes along the East Coast.

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on Twitter

Ps... Some incredible books at that bookstore. Call them, order a few .... look online. Learn from the past because the past always repeats in some ways every day, every year ... every Hurricane Season.

http://hurricaneharbor.blogspot.com/2018/06/tropics-sunday-gfs-hot-euro-not-or.html a good shorter read that may make you think on your priorities.

Hurricane Season and FIU Pedestrian Bridge - ABC Construction during Hurricane Season. Hurricane Irma. Just Wondering...

Damage at FIU shown below.

On a rainy cold night in Raleigh during a thunderstorm that reminds me more of a Miami Monsoon than Raleigh rain I'm thinking on the Hurricane Season and the construction of the FIU Pedestrian Bridge Collapse. The possibility of snow flakes falling tomorrow morning here keeps taking a back seat  in my mind as I wonder on how far into actual construction they were in September of 2017 when Hurricane Irma moved towards the Miami area. Yes, Irma made landfall in the Lower to Middle Keys, however the Miami area was slammed with torrential rain, wind and debris flying in the wind.  I wonder just how far along they had gotten when Irma slammed into Miami. I'll wonder on the possibility of snow flakes tomorrow morning if and when I see them. I'm wondering tonight on what things might have gone unseen during the early stages of the construction of the FIU Pedestrian Bridge.

I know most large construction sites do not take the materials away and store them safely somewhere else. I watched the slow construction of the Overseas Highway new bridge and noted how even when it seemed a storm was nearing the area the construction material stayed where it was and to be honest they got lucky and no strong storm tangled with that project.

But this project began in the months before Hurricane Irma and a very busy, wet hurricane season. I'm sure the site was inspected but when and how long did it take to inspect the materials? No one was working for a good week in many places as debris had to be picked up, roads cleaned and electricity restored. Miami wasn't exactly working normally during that time.

So I keep thinking about the construction of the bridge and how far along they were when Irma slammed into the Miami area.

Note the picture below taken from Google. As you travel down Tamiami Trail you can see most of the ABC Bridge Project behind tarp and signs that show it as a "construction site" ...

FIU was busy also with flooding at the Biscayne Bay Campus. They were wonderful with updates on how things were progressing towards normal but nothing really was normal in September of 2017. Even Tamiami Trail Campus far from Biscayne Bay had flooding problems as well as debris that was blown by the storm's winds every which way as the song goes. Irma was not fast moving Andrew with it's precise buzz saw shape where damage was kept to a small area where the wicked eye wall sliced Miami Dade County into two parts; the part with the damage and the part where there was total destruction. Irma lumbered along after a wet period and the damage path for Irma stretched from Cuba to the Florida Keys all the way North to Jacksonville that had historic flooding.

Way before Irma made landfall...

Miami was getting copious amounts of rain.

Bands lashed Miami ...

...when it was on the coast of Cuba.

Then Irma obliterated the State of Florida.

How in any way did the hurricane impact the construction site I wonder. How far along were they? The picture above taken by Google in August the month before shows the Accelerated Bridge Construction had begun. In late October another system soaked the Miami area adding insult to injury known as Tropical Storm Phillipe. 

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/weather/article181498926.html

I tell myself there were inspections and they took into account what might happen if the project sat for days, maybe longer waiting for inspections and for workers to be able to get back to work with everything else that was going on during a State of Emergency. Do we know for sure? What one variable could have impacted the project that did not impact other similar projects constructed the same way? I wonder. As I look at that picture above and see it how it looked in August I wonder how it looked after the hurricane. And, when I look at the picture my son took below while stopped at the traffic light admiring the beauty of the construction I'm grateful he wasn't at the wrong place at the wrong time. It was just a balmy, beautiful Miami evening and he was at the right place to admire the beauty of a bridge that would we thought would take FIU another step into the future. 

FIGG designs beautiful bridges that have been built everywhere ... far beyond the reaches of Florida politics. They do beautiful work and the MCM construction company has been around for a long time. Accidents happen that's why they are called accidents. But sometimes there's one or two variables that are part of the equation and I'm wondering tonight just how far along they were in construction of any part of the bridge when Hurricane Irma began to douse Miami with record rain, flooding and destructive winds.

The picture below my son took.

A night or two before it collapsed.

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on Twitter.

#FIUStrong

https://news.fiu.edu/2017/09/hurricane-irma-updates1/115044

https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/FIU-Students-Staying-in-Campus-Shelter-After-Dorm-Building-Damaged-by-Hurricane-Irma-445477903.html

https://news.fiu.edu/2017/09/tree-preservation-plan-helped-campus-landscaping-survive-hurricane-irma/115513

Picayune Lawsuit Threatened at UM For Not Going to a College Football Game Because of Hurricane Irma.

Arkansas State is threatening to sue UM.

Over a college football game...

Why?

Because they couldn't make a game due to Irma.

You remember Hurricane Irma....

I'm just going to put this here and let you decide what you think but you can imagine what I'm thinking. Obviously the school of higher education in Arkansas needs an education in what a Major Hurricane is when it is moving towards your home town and what it's priorities should be. I know... earthquakes and twisters must seem real to them with an occasional ice storm but they seem to know nothing about Major Hurricanes in the Ozarks.

I suppose the day before the New Madrid Fault comes back to life and shoots out a 7.5 earthquake you will be able to play a college football game. But luckily, Major Hurricanes, give us a small heads up time to try and prepare for death, destruction and catastrophe. 

https://www.si.com/college-football/2018/02/12/miami-arkansas-state-lawsuit-hurricane-irma-canceled-game

Let's go straight to the source.

This was the UM after Irma.

During the clean up.

http://www.themiamihurricane.com/2017/09/13/video-hurricane-irmas-damage-on-coral-gables-campus/

Personally I have never seen anything so asinine or picayune as Arkansas State saying a Major "Hurricane" about to make landfall is not a reason to  not play a college football game! It reminds me of the US government trying to excuse themselves for a poor response time to Hurricane Andrew by saying they were waiting for a Fax from Miami; spoiler alert the power was out and the fax machine wasn't working....

I'm sorry that they don't understand how you have to prepare for a Cat 4 or 5 hurricane as if it is going to make a direct landfall on your college, the dorms, the apartments your college students live in and their family homes that might be in the area as well. I do so love college football but let's get real here I'm pretty sure this is ridiculous. Possibly UM thought it was redundant to put "hurricanes" into their document or it never occurred to them that some one worrying on the New Madrid Fault coming back to life wouldn't understand a Category 5 Hurricane is a dangerous "act of God" sort of disaster (duh) but this reads from any point of view like a bunch of thugs trying to bully someone into paying up like in a bad Mobster movie from the 1930s.

We were lucky in Coral Gables as only 75% of the roads on campus had debris covering them and about half were strewn with large trees making it impossible to navigate by car until the cavalry came in and began the long clean up process. We did lose power for a long time during the height of our summer. It wasn't all a big Hurricane Party. Had Miami been hit dead on would they still have sued? Would they have sued a college in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina? Pay up or else? Seriously?

This has to be my favorite quote below:

“Despite these offers, accommodations, and a number of other unilateral efforts on behalf of Arkansas State University, Miami refused to appear. This refusal caused Arkansas State University, the community of Jonesboro, and others significant harm.’’

http://www.miamiherald.com/sports/college/acc/university-of-miami/article199722524.html

Really???????????

Significant harm????? They don't know what a catastrophe is but they think they had significant harm by not playing a game while the students, coaches and staff at the UM were facing a Major Hurricane???

Say it ain't so .....

.... really no words beyond pathetic.

Pathetic and picayune.

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on Twitter

Ps.... Have a great Fat Tuesday!

Ain't nothing picayune about Mardi Gras.

Crowd Sourcing & Civilian Volunteers After Hurricanes One of the Stories of 2017.

One of the nice things about keeping the Jewish Sabbath, as I do, is that it gives me some time offline to catch up on reading things that I meant to read yet got lost in the busy every day pace of my world both on and offline during the rest of the week. Facebook feeds swallow up time faster than water rising in Hurricane Sandy. On Shabbos with a cup of tea and a snack I can rest on the comfortable sofa and read everything from saved articles such as the one above to leafing through encyclopedias to do some reading up on something. The article above was sent out in a year end review of 2017 and caught my attention as aside from being Hurricane related it told the story I heard before of a friend's brother who helped in the rescue of a sweet older woman. The nephew of the man in the rescue is a cute little boy who talked a blue streak to me this past Sukkos in his Sukkoth about the flooding in Houston where his Grandparents and family lived. I remembered when this was happening in real time I felt that this should be the real story of 2017. The way the Network of Social Media was used by Civilian Volunteers to help save people in real time during Hurricane Harvey. Maybe it just says something larger than life about the people of Texas .... but I like to think that it's human nature rising to the top doing good deeds to make the world a better place.

2017 Hurricane Season.

Crowd Sourcing to save lives.

Civilian Volunteers

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/cajun-navy-races-from-louisiana-to-texas-using-boats-to-pay-it-forward/2017/08/28/1a010c8a-8c1f-11e7-84c0-02cc069f2c37_story.html?utm_term=.48feccfab9ff

I get tired of politics and agendas sometimes. There was a time we liked a little spin with our news but these days the spin is enough to make you dizzy before you barely get to the first commercial on the news.  If I was going to name the Person of the Year it would be the EVERYDAY PEOPLE who VOLUNTEERED and helped in the aftermath of hurricanes this year. The Cajun Navy that mobilized instantly using various social media platforms to get into flooded regions and get people out of homes that were going under water rapidly. Groups such as Chabad in Houston that were dealing with their own homes being flooded going out on search and rescue missions to help where help was needed. The sheer scope of the historic flooding in Hurricane Harvey put a huge dent into the normal fast response we expect after a hurricane. When such a large area is affected in disasters such as Katrina and Andrew the system begins to break down. But this year in particular the civilian responders jumped in when flood waters had already swallowed up their homes and the people of Houston got into their boats, trucks and waded personally into the water to help save lives in any way they could and they deserve an award. 

If you read the story of the 77 year old woman in Houston you will find out she called her son in England to tell him that flood waters had entered her 2nd flood apartment and she didn't know what to do. He called a friend in Chabad locally in England to ask if they knew someone in Houston and of course someone did and .....they put out a plea on the community WhatsApp group and immediately my friend in Raleigh's brother who lives in  Houston went out with a few volunteers to rescue the woman. More wonderfully, his wife Baila insisted she stay by them in their home for a month until she could figure out where to go and what to do as their home thankfully only had some ceiling leaks and minor damage. Stories such as this one were repeated across the area in real time as people called family, friends and clergy asking for help and again because of social media groups such as WhatsApp the message was put out in real time to a large amount of people. 

Social Media and Crowd Sourcing to me... was the game changer. Often older people trapped in homes with their ceiling falling in on them or flooding rising into their homes feel panicked and don't know where to go ... other than trying 911 and waiting to be added to the list or they call their family. 

http://lubavitch.com/news/article/2076153/Emerging-From-the-Flood-Waters-True-Kindness.html

This really begain in 2016 during Hurricane Matthew a man taking video with a drone led to the rescue of someone's brother who was watching in real time as flood waters were rising fast into his home.  During the 2017 Hurricane Season this style of self sacrifice and good will took that story to a much larger, wider level.

Amazingly a man and his dog were both saved.

Social Media being a game changer.

http://abc11.com/weather/drone-social-media-help-save-man-dog-trapped-in-flood/1550720/

The victory of human nature over Mother Nature this past summer was one of the beautiful stories to come out of the tragic flooding in Harvey and the devastation across a wide area from Irma. Many places were hit hard this year and abroad from Puerto Rico to small islands few remember the name of are still reeling while we go about our every day life in America celebrating the coming of 2018. What will 2018 bring this Hurricane Season? It's safe to say more of the same ..... unless something major breaks the pattern of Mother Nature on a rampage. This year's epic Hurricane Season has given way to epic, record breaking cold temperatures as shelters and volunteers are racing to help those in need. Locally in Raleigh a volunteer group began giving out blankets and warm drinks to homeless people who didn't want to go into a shelter. You do what you can when you can to help who you can...

Sometimes it really does take a village to help save a life. It's one thing to watch the story on the Nightly News or CNN Live and another to get a personal request in your WhatsApp feed that a woman down the block from you is about to drown in flood waters in her 2nd floor apartment and needs help. It only takes a few moments in real time in a busy WhatsApp feed to figure out who has a boat, who can find a few strong men (in the case of Chabad ...ex Israeli soldiers) to get to her and get her out to safety fast. 

Crowd Sourcing + Civilian Volunteers.

So that's my thought on the 2017 Hurricane Season. People helping people, giving time and supplies when needed or giving a donation online. It only takes a minute... it only takes a bit of time. The world has changed so fast that I can send a child money on an App in my phone faster than than I can edit this blog post and yes sometimes I get presents for my birthday just as fast. Fast can be good sometimes .. especially when flood waters are rising or someone's roof just blew away or someone watching their Twitter Feed recognizes their brother's house going under water and contacts the person who tweeted to get to their brother fast.

Something to think on...

With prayers for a safe, happy 2018 for everyone reading this and a request to dress accordingly this New Year's Eve. Flip flops may be find in Miami but if you are in New York City... bundle up it's going to be an epic cold New Year's Eve.

Besos BobbiStorm

http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/814118/jewish/Charity-Tzedakah.htm

https://www.npr.org/2017/12/28/574166438/in-houston-thousands-remain-displaced-as-harvey-recovery-continues

Post Maria Relief to PR More Compelling Right Now Than Invest 99L... Do Your Part. Tropics May Be a Problem Again 10/7-10/8

My suggestion to the NHC, not that they really listen to me... is let's call the whole thing off. Let the NWS forecast this weather that parts of Florida are dealing with and go out, have a good Sunday and start over with a new Invest 90L when something really shows up to do work. 99L has so far been a slacker ... kind of all over the place. It's been so all over the place the models are actually OFF THE CHARTS. Rarely see that.... but look below and some of the tracks go straight off the chart... deep SW movement.  See the model map below..not the models won't even stay on the page.

And this is why so many listen to Mike.

He's honest, puts it into perspective.

Has priorities.

Play ball... family time.

spaghettimodels.com

I'm not saying nothing will form.

Something will try to form.

But it's a messy environment today.

It's a messy environment for a while.

Another set of model runs.

I get a headache just from looking  at that model above.

See all those Upper Level Lows...

Cranking up.

Creates shear.

Not happening there...

Euro forms something.

In a week.

NE up over FL.

Gets stronger E of FL.

After it crosses.

GFS forms around the same place.

Goes wide left to Tex Mex.

So yes something may develop in a week and there are models that show something developing and being shunted off to one place or another but not today, not tomorrow and probably not the day after tomorrow. 

1... One track shows a system going West and I mean all the way West to Tex Mex land underneath a very strong High Pressure Ridge.

2.. Another model shows the system develops and pull sup NE over Florida as an October Storm would be want to do... 

As I said Friday... talking starting around 10/6 or 10/7 and definitely ramping up 10/8 and yet it's still long range and far away today. Nothing imminent and you can better spend today with your family, your pooch or cat or staring at the gold fish. Take a walk, go for a run... help collect supplies or give money to a relief organization who is actively spending the time trying to get relief to those in need. The Red Cross is always there... as are other organizations and just regular people who are working together to make a difference.

Not sure what this song means but my brother Jay will get it... so posting it and smiling. It's very simple yet complicated much like MacArthur Park with that cake in the rain. In an alternative universe this Invest developed last night into a small tropical storm named Nate and in a day or so gets picked up by the currents and become a Category 3 Hurricane and takes a slow, exhausting trip up the Interstate to cities that have not yet been directly affected by a named storm this season. Life is not about what ifs and this whole Invest has been about "what if" and it's time to pull the plug and start over in the early 90s with a new Invest. Let people go... let them enjoy their Sunday and worry on it later. Florida is used to rain... we have the best weather people in the country they got this one.

https://www.facebook.com/ChabadPR/  Chabad of Puerto Rico... trying to help distribute supplies.

Honestly Miami people are mostly worried about Puerto Rico than 99L. They are aware there is debris that needs to be picked up but their priorities are pretty straight and trying to help those who got hit far worse than they did.  Phil Ferro from WSVN Channel 7 in Miami put this up recently. He's worried more today on Puerto Rico than he is on Invest 99L.  IF things change people will worry on the piles of debris rotting moldy in the hot Florida sunshine and prepare but for now...people are honestly worried about those in Puerto Rico.

Phil Ferro Channel 7

WSVN Miami.

Tweeted this... heavy article.

Shows the real human misery.

Americans in the Caribbean.

Without food, water, electricity...

John Morales from NBC 6 Miami...

...also tweeting about things PR needs.

Disaster Relief.

Maria Recovery.

Irma Recovery.

This really is the big tropical story today.

NOT Invest 99L

My son Levi and some of his best friends and co-workers at Compass Realty have been collecting supplies to send to those in need. Having two small children himself he understands the problems parents are facing so he focused on diapers, baby wipes, children's Tylenol, medical supplies.. as well as water, canned soup, tuna and whatever they can get to those who need. Trust me.. my son Levi can get diapers into a war zone... he's had experience and knows how to take control. So... they collected diapers and a long list of things people need. Many people were involved. Costco (where they bought some of the diapers... donated more things) and the stuff is now on it's way to Puerto Rico and down to the Keys. Irma and Maria have left people desperate for more than having the tree debris cleaned up and as Key West is an island and for a while it was cut off from the world even the basic supplies not bought before the storm were unavailable. Key West wasn't affected like Puerto Rico (or Cudjoe Key) but they were knocked out of it for a good few weeks.  Puerto Rico is the bigger concern currently and the staging center for much of the relief is in the Wynwood Section of Miami. They have the connections and ability to get the supplies in to Puerto Rico where it's needed the most and is able to be distributed best.

Costco actually gave them 13 pallets of supplies...

...that they were collecting.

Levi and his team got them to Wynwood..

..to be sent to Puerto Rico.

Everyone pitches in.

To try and make a difference.

So rather than worry on Invest 99L.

I suggest you listen to this song.

And be the change you want to see..

..in the world.

Give as you can.

Do what you can.

Worry on Invest 99L another day.

Or wonder on Invest 90L..

way down the road.

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on Twitter

Ps.. Pretty awesome. Proud.  Now y'all do your part as you can.. Thank you Levi for being you!

You've come a long way Levi.

Proud of you..

https://www.compass.com/agents/miami/levi-meyer/

Keep it going...

Going off.. allergies bothering me today. Not going to over proof this but may again later. Sorry but seen so many typos lately in major market media newspapaers online it blows me way and I wonder why bloggers who reach the audience I do worry so on a typo. Okay the degree in English probably weighs heavier on me than on many who work with large newspapers. ... PLEASE DONATE where you can...