Cat 5 Hurricane Irma Headed to Florida Peninsula and Keys - Prepare Now!

[Insider]

Hurricane prone areas in the remainder of the SE continental United States should also start preparations.

Hurricane Irma has just strengthened into a Category 5 Hurricane with sustained winds of 175 mph. Irma is expected to weaken slightly into a Category 4 hurricane over the next five days. Most models have this thing coming into the SE this weekend.

Current pressure is 929 mb.

Previous Post:

Hurricane Harvey is expected to strengthen to become the US’s first major hurricane in over 11 years. In case you’re not in the loop, it will be affecting southeastern Texas.

Widespread power outages are expected with tremendous amounts of rain and wind. These power outages may also be prolonged as the systems stalls out in the same general area through at least mid-week next week. It won’t be the fastest to weaken, either. Widespread rainfall amounts of more than a foot are expected,

(The Weather Channel)

What this means is you need to be prepared for at least a week of no power. I hope you have a lot of Anker batteries! Start charging every portable charger NOW… no time to waste! Fully charge all of your devices and try to keep them at 100% until the power goes out. Lowe power mode / extreme low power mode would be a good idea. Also make sure you have batteries for your flashlights.

Try not to use your devices when you don’t have to. It will probably become increasingly difficult considering you may be trapped inside for days, will probably get bored, and start to desperately seek entertainment, but just try to go without.

Of course if you evacuate you are avoiding most of these problems… Don’t let Harvey be deadly!

Is there anything else you would do to prepare your technology for an event like this one? Let me know!

[professor]

[Insider]

1mph from Cat 4

[hunho.lee10]

if any of the people here are within that area, stay safe!

[TechnicallyWell]

Great advice, @joshuad11! Instead of going without entertainment, I would say if you have a non-cellular device like a tablet or an old phone, charge it up and start downloading Netflix and Amazon Prime shows now for offline viewing. But you’re right: keep your actual phone charged in case you need to make an emergency call (and don’t use it for watching movies)!

[professor]

So a Hurricane is one of the easiest things to handle relative to things like Earthquakes, in that you are given ample warning and so can choose to get out of the way or hunker time, and have time to charge all those expensive big Powercores from their stored in cool place at 60% charge up to 100% and put them in your waterproof sealed bags in your emergency backpack with your water and food.

Water matters most and is heaviest, and technology if you get too attached to it is just a less useful weight than water. Water if you do not have enough and so you drink contaminated water (most in USA never know what true thirst is and how it dominates your total thinking) then it can incapacitate you early. Then there is food.

Probably to travel light to get out of a local situation, with just enough technology, so a reliable phone, radio, torch, and a Powercore big enough to last say a week (I’m thinking 100Wh worth) is a just-enough technology response. Waterproof pouches help, you’d be surprised how 1st world folks forget basics.

[Jack_Matthias]

Everyone stay safe and protect your anker products

[cdarienzo1]

Well @nigelhealy hurricanes are very difficult to combat, if even a single road is covert with debris than trucks with gas cannot go through. Power has to be cut in order to fix lines, so you would need at least 3 days of water since thats about how long it takes for water to be given out by FEMA, National Guard, or RedCross. An easy fix to water is simple, before a hurricane fill a bath tub with water and purchase a life straw for about $15 (Linkhttps://www.amazon.com/LifeStraw-Personal-Camping-Emergency-Preparedness/dp/B006QF3TW4/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1503704978&sr=8-4&keywords=lifestraw) Then you will have about 40-100 gallons of water which would easily hydrate a large group of people. Food is easy you can eat that can of corn in the pantry or soup. MREs are distributed to people right away even if roads are blocked a US Air force C5 Super galaxy can easily carry 36 463L balletmaster which hold up to 5,000 MREs totaling 180000 meals for people. There is no reason to use a phone during a disaster other than to make calls. Two 20100 power cores should last about a month though it is an investment.

Coca cola, Pepesi, Private military contractors and other groups are gonna race there and play hero to get tv time

[professor]

I think we just agreed?

Hurricanes, relative to say an Earthquake, are easier, because you know they are coming. A Hurricane, you can fill that bath with water, but in an Earthquake zone, you’d not have a spare bath always filled with water, and also your bath can be tipped up and shattered by the Earthquake.

We agree that the limitation is not technology. Apart from 1st world problems of “bored” you don’t need much technology.

Now at this point someone who cannot read will skip the word “relative” and just think I said Hurricanes are easy, but they will be ignored.

As for hunger, well tin opener comes to mind.

I hope everyone affected is either moved out of the way already or has all their needs stowed away.

[gAnkster]

Apart from 1st world problems of “bored” you don’t need much technology.

Well, communication can be a lifesaver, especially if you need to map out areas that are, for instance, under water. I’ve found that integrating preparedness into daily life (ie. charging all solar whenever possible) really gives one a good look at what it might be like to live without grid in the event of a disaster. I’ve got two in mind in my area: earthquakes (we had a Mag 5 this summer) and wildfires (I’m currently living in a cloud of wildfire smoke). I could easily see transmission lines going down and no one knowing how to get around without mapping tools, etc.

[professor]

So I tend to work in zones, I travel a lot and dodge storms and such like, I’ve been nearly killed by terrorists now three times.

The zone 0 is inside your skin, which is:

• keep yourself physically thin and physically strong. This helps with the basics of being able to jump out of the way, climb out of, jump over, swim, run, etc. That is the ultimately what is your first line of defense. Solar won’t help if you too fat to jump out of the way or climb out of the way of whatever like flood water. Not too thin, if what happened is you are crushed in an earthquake and trapped you live off what is inside your skin waiting for rescue.

Zone 1 is keeping alive:

• water
• food
• shelter (clothing, etc).

Zone 2 is improving your situation:

• radio, maps, etc. On my phone I have downloaded offline maps for every place I visit, this allows for the network being down.

Zone 3 is making it not that bad a situation

• so USB batteries, solar
• downloaded stored media (more important for bored kids) so tablets, phones, SD cards, etc. My two phones and my tablet and my Chromebook all have 64GB minimum and lots of media on them.

Zone 4 is making it fun:

• outdoor speakers, barbeques, possibly a Nebula projector?

In general if you know how to camp and be off grid for a week, and you walk / bike / swim / run a lot for fitness then you’re significantly on the way to be able to handle most situations.

We both own two solar panels and portable chargers, I have about 100Wh of batteries which combined with solar is close to a family sustaining weeks.

My concern in the USA in particular is the notion if you have a truck and a gun you can handle anything, but that is far from the truth, the trucks floating in Houston flooded roads is a good example.

Finally, the chance you are in the greatest need if you do all of the above is slim, but chances are you then are available to help others, so part of the solution as you made yourself not part of the problem.

[Insider]

Hurricane Irma looking scary!

This is the GFS model, which is the main long-range (384h) American model.

[cdarienzo1]

uh oh… Hurricane Sandy part 2 with Anker batteries?

[Insider]

…IRMA BECOMES AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS CATEGORY 5 HURRICANE… …PREPARATIONS SHOULD BE RUSHED TO COMPLETION IN THE HURRICANE WARNING AREA…

^From NHC

[TechnicallyWell]

@joshuad11, I know you’ve been checking the models. Any agreement as to where it may make landfall?

[Insider]

If I had to bet, I would say southern Florida. However, what’s really uncertain is where it goes after that. It could go back into the Gulf and then threaten the Florida panhandle. It could stay inland and eventually affect the Carolinas, or it could go back into the Atlantic and make a second landfall in the Carolinas. Lots of uncertainty remains because the weather patterns are very complicated and difficult to predict.

A small change could be the difference of several states due to how fast the track is expected to shift direction. I’ll keep you updated.

By the way, with Irma now at 180 mph sustained winds, it is the strongest Hurricane the National Hurricane Center has on record outside of the Gulf and the Caribbean Sea!

As far as the intensity, it is going to come down to if the core goes directly over any islands (especially Cuba) before it reaches the US. If it doesn’t, there is the potential for the hurricane to be stronger in 5-7 days than it is now, which would be devastating.

[cdarienzo1]

@joshuad11 your great with weather! Should I have to worry? I live on Long Island, New York, any chance it will turn and come here?

[professor]

All of this talk of storm power outages, out here in California we had:

• warning on Friday of power outages due to be unusually warm, it was the hottest or near hottest on record. I know it gets warmer in the south than the west but the unexpected heat causes aged about-to-fail transformers to all fail at once, a bit like if its not been windy for ages the windy day knocks all the old branches off.
• offices in the voluntary managed power reduction programme, offices get hotter “go home”.
• we also have the continual no-notice threat of earthquakes.

Anyhow, seeing as I bid twice and didn’t win twice, I bought the Eufy stick on lights so we’re not stumbling to go get our Anker torches we have liberally spread around, to go the 1-Gallon bottles of water have spread around (as thirst is the 1st problem after dark problem).

[Insider]

If it made it to New York, it would be drastically weaker, and possibly not even a tropical storm, so I don’t think you have to be too concerned. I would, however, keep my eyes on Jośe, the storm behind Irma, as it looks to take a more northerly track. Still way too far out to tell if it will impact the US at all, though. I’d say less than 30% chance it will ATTM.

[professor]

I have found it more mentally calming to use the “hope for the best, plan for the worst” in that checking weather forecasts for the might turn left / might turn right / might not happen weather checking causes more angst than is useful.

I now keep a high state of preparedness and then 99% of the time totally ignore the weather forecasts. I’m sat here in a 70F dry location, and give me say 2 minutes I could handle a 10F snow storm.

80% of what you need is totally unaffected by the weather. It is your water, no-cook food (energy bars basically), a thin layer (heat = sun protection, cold = base layer), a torch. The noticeable exception is that large down coat I throw in the “going to Minneapolis in February” trip, that fits in a 10L drysac I can grab if California suddenly dropped 60F.

The absolute important thing is to keep yourself physically strong, light, and be not so gadgetry materialist as the human cannot be replaced but that thing you bought can be.

I usually carry an umbrella. Good for rain, good for sun protection. My fave brand went bankrupt but I bought their stock cheap.