Hurricane Irma

Irma turning cat 3, well organized and coming on Caribbean.
I plan sunday to going South, Hope Irma making more North and not going to hit us.
Any other people from Trawler Forum in Caribbean and what are you doing?

Hugues

We're leaving San Juan on the 16th on a Southern Caribbean cruise, that's what we're doing!

A bunch of spaghetti models show it heading for the east coast. Got to keep an eye out for this one.

Looking worse now, cat 3 or so wroth significant impact to the islands. Florida/east coast could get it. I can't believe there's another one barreling down on us already!

Monday morning has the highest probabilities from Florida to N Carolina..

So in 2 days it has shifted slightly westward, but some forecasters expected that.

Still too early to tell according to them, my moneywould be on the SEUS landfall as so far Irma has been pretty close to forecast.

I would pay for a sharp turn northeast, but not likely gonna happen....

Glad I'm not in/near the Bahamas now! I was looking at my Windy app and saw this for Saturday.

45' waves?

European model had it going right over Freds place with one of the last predictions.

psneeld said:

European model had it going right over Freds place with one of the last predictions.

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That's just not right. [emoji22]

Every prediction I see is different. All we know for sure is, it may hit the US east coast somewhere. Or it may not.

Sadly it's forecast to go within 20 miles of my boat currently hauled in Virgin Gorda. Does not look good, I am due to flydown and prep the boat for the season on the 30th, at the moment it looks like i'll be picking up pieces.

Martin J said:

Sadly it's forecast to go within 20 miles of my boat currently hauled in Virgin Gorda. Does not look good, I am due to flydown and prep the boat for the season on the 30th, at the moment it looks like i'll be picking up pieces.

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I pray not!

Martin J said:

Sadly it's forecast to go within 20 miles of my boat currently hauled in Virgin Gorda. Does not look good, I am due to flydown and prep the boat for the season on the 30th, at the moment it looks like i'll be picking up pieces.

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Oh man I hope that doesn't happen. Best of luck to you-- stay safe most importantly.

Oh Boy....this one definitely looks like it is poised to kick some serious TF Member butt, me included. That dang gone high pressure keeps pinching the trajectory West. If it gets to Cuba before the turn, not good.

Crap. And we are right about the most active part of the year with a couple more disturbances besides Irma.

If anyone wants to tack it Stormcarib has some of the best graphics and plots.

How close can it get? - Closest Point of Approach - Caribbean Hurricane Network
Caribbean Hurricane Network - stormCARIB.com - Local Reports on Tropical Systems threatening the Caribbean Islands

Ours is in an unprotected marina in Georgetown, SC. We were planning on moving it north to Southport next month but we might have to do it sooner rather than later.

Steve91T said:

Ours is in an unprotected marina in Georgetown, SC. We were planning on moving it north to Southport next month but we might have to do it sooner rather than later.

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I would be making reservations for somewhere behind Myrtle Beach like Osprey, Barefoot, or Grand Dunes marinas till Irma is gone.

psneeld said:

I would be making reservations for somewhere behind Myrtle Beach like Osprey, Barefoot, or Grand Dunes marinas till Irma is gone.

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I have just spent the last hour and a half calling every marina between Georgetown and willmington and every single one is not only booked, they have huge waiting lists.

I honestly don't know what to do. Our marina will evacuate if the hurricane is going to hit. But I don't have a place to go.

Try the marinas up the Cape Fear, if booked, how about New River?

Never been up thete but every mile away from the coast helps, as long as the river isn't prone to severe flooding.

Steve91T said:

I have just spent the last hour and a half calling every marina between Georgetown and willmington and every single one is not only booked, they have huge waiting lists.

I honestly don't know what to do. Our marina will evacuate if the hurricane is going to hit. But I don't have a place to go.

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Grande Dunes is full? That's a first.

BandB said:

Grande Dunes is full? That's a first.

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Ok Port City in Wilmington has slips available but only after this weekend because they have a boat show scheduled. Of course. So we are on the books for that.

Grande Dunes is full but I called back and pleaded and she said she'll squeeze me in.

Thank God.

NWS now predicts that Irma will hit St. Martin tomorrow. Wonder if 101TUG is back from BVI. Gustavia did not strike me as much of a hurricane hole.

Unless some weather happens real soon Tx. could be in for another one.

Loons Nest is on the hard in St Marys GA. We are supposed to join her and launch mid-September. Hmmmm - watching closely.

Miami has started hurricane prep. I went to Lowes today. They were pretty busy. Everyone seemed to have a gas can.

I'm about to go see if my generator will start. It should, I've never run it on gasoline, just propane. I'm pissed because I ordered a whole house generator two months ago and they still haven't installed it.

Not too worried about Possum. She is way up the Miami river behind my old store.

There are various levels of storm surge evacuation zones, A through E. I'm in a zone C. Zone A is right along the coast and includes all of Miami Beach and Key Biscane.

HopCar said:

Miami has started hurricane prep. I went to Lowes today. They were pretty busy. Everyone seemed to have a gas can.

I'm about to go see if my generator will start. It should, I've never run it on gasoline, just propane. I'm pissed because I ordered a whole house generator two months ago and they still haven't installed it.

Not too worried about Possum. She is way up the Miami river behind my old store.

There are various levels of storm surge evacuation zones, A through E. I'm in a zone C. Zone A is right along the coast and includes all of Miami Beach and Key Biscane.

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In Fort Lauderdale, anything east of the ICW is zone A and between the ICW and highway 1 is zone B. Zone A may be evacuated for any hurricane, zone B only for CAT 3's or above.

Cape fear boatworks in Wilmington/Navassa NC may be able to do a hurricane haul. They have a lot of dirt availble to set boats on the hard.

This could get really, really ugly for Florida. Normally a storm hits the east coast at an angle and the damage is limited to the diameter of the storm. Winds diminish substantially as you go out from the center, and are considerably less on the southwest side of the eye. Once the eye is over land, it weakens further.
This storm could make landfall right on the tip of the Florida Pennisula and travel right up middle of the state. There is no elevation in FL to interupt the motion, and the bottom third of the state is all swamp land so the storm could still build or maintain strength from the warm water of the Everglades. That would put the most damaging quadrant of the storm right over the huge population centers of Miami, Ft Lauderdale, Delray, and West Palm. I don't think that's ever happened before but the potential for loss here could be bigger than Andrew. I know this is the worst case scenario out of many, and lots can change over the next week, but ...the potential is there.

Very true, Benthic. We're now in NC and flying home tomorrow. At this point there are paths that have it first making US landfall anywhere from Mississippi to Connecticut. I've seen the one with the path you described. I would think it would gradually lose strength with that path. Still would be devastating and would show how much we (I say we although I wasn't here) learned from Andrew. Our house was built post-Andrea although even the homes in our area built in the 50's and 60's seem well equipped as most have changed their windows and roof over that time and chosen more insurance friendly types. Between insurance savings and electricity savings, hurricane windows pay for themselves in a relatively short period of time.

If we stayed in Florida I would have gone with the hurricane rated windows. Living in West Palm, I had to deal with the galvanized metal panels for Jeanne and Frances in 2004, but I was glad I had them. (We traded hurricanes for blizzards and moved north in 2005)