People keep asking if Dorian is affecting us.
Shortest answer: A little. Slightly longer answer: We are under a Hurricane Watch in Palm Beach County, meaning "hurricane conditions" could exist in the next 48 hours. Slightly longer answer: "Hurricane conditions" does not mean what's happening now on Bermuda; it could be a lot lighter, and is so forecast to be.
I am writing now because the likelihoods tell me that we are going to lose power in the next 24 hours and could be out 3 to 10 days, most likely the shorter period. I have just sent this note to the kids, and I thought some of you might like it, too. I'll try to update, but when the power goes off I will be silenced. It should not be taken as an ominous silence.
One likelihood is that overnight the winds will kick up to Tropical Force, meaning gusts of 74 mph. We can get that with normal summer thunderstorms.
Another likelihood is that tomorrow we may get 3-5 inches of rain. We can do that on a summer afternoon.
But Florida Power and Light is prone to losing our house in either of the above conditions. We were out for almost two hours last Thursday with almost nothing happening. Usually they can get us back in 2 to 5 hours. Happens all the time, although not as often as it used to since they installed concrete poles where the wooden ones were.
The added problem now is Dorian's winds. FPL wisely doesn't climb poles with wind speeds over 35 mph. Those may stay around through Thursday. And if the hurricane hits land in Florida -- as it is currently NOT forecast to do -- FPL deploys on a priority basis. And we are definitely not priority.
Thrice we have waited for a team from South Carolina to arrive to restore our power. It was the same team all three times. They have to drive through Georgia and then "stage" for a couple of days on the border. And if there are things to fix between us and them, it has taken as long as 10 days. I read a great book on Napoleon's retreat from Moscow in the snows of 1812 by sunlight on the patio while the air conditioning and lights were dormant that time.
Mass has been canceled for tomorrow. I have closed about half of the shutters. I am thinking about the rest. This is the slowest hurricane I can remember. It was moving west at 1 mph for awhile this morning. I believe it accelerated to 5 mph at 11 a.m.
Bermuda was hit early this morning. A friend heard from his daughter there that they expect to be south of the eye where they are. South of the eye is good. Relatively. Pray for the folks out there.
Tom, I am glad for your sake that Dorian seems likely to veer up along the coast but out to sea (is that still the plan? I haven't seen the news for a day or so).
ReplyDeleteDoes cell service prove more reliable than electricity? I guess you can answer that question when you're back online.
5:30 a.m. and we still have power. Cell phones are very iffy. The phones work, but towers are in and out. And, of course, the phones can't be recharged except by charging them off the car, which is a desperate move in a real gasoline shortage. (We don't face that kind of shortage here.)
ReplyDeleteAt the moment, we are at the extreme southern end of hurricane warnings that run up to Virginia. Latitudinally we are south of the eye now, and Dorian is looking for all the world like it is going to go north. In the 5 a.m. update, the Hurricane Center said it isn't moving at all. That means it is still sitting on Grand Bahama after a day there.
We are supposed to get some winds starting mid-morning. There was rain overnight, but nothing to write a blog about.
I see that Amazon has a hand-cranked phone charger, as well as solar ones. Don't know how well they work.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea. There are hand-cranked radios, but the people I know who bought them never seem to use them. We have flashlights that work on Faraday's magnetic principle: You shake and shake, and a magnet bounces around some coils, and you get light. Good for the biceps. Not good enough to read the OED by.
DeleteDorian has begun (9:00 a.m.) to move. It has weakened to Cat 3, which is still serious. It's supposedly 110 miles east of us, but it's more ENE. It could still hit something north of here, but the Bahamas really fell on the grenade for us. Question now is whether Trump thinks the Bahamas are a U.S. territory; he didn't seem to know that Puerto Rico was, but he may have a vague idea that we have some offshore real estate.
ReplyDeleteHe said he never heard of a Cat 5 before. What a miasma brain.
DeleteTo quote Bugs Bunny, "What a maroon!"
DeleteHe says that every time there's a hurricane. He doesn't listen to or retain info.
DeleteFuture generations will look at videos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVB6fqr4SFI0) of that idiot sitting there in his USA hat in front of a sign that says "The President" making asinine remarks, and they will curse us in our graves.
I've told Raber to make sure my headstone says, "I did not vote for Trump."
Story on one of the local NPR stations about people who moved from Florida to Michigan to avoid effects of global warming. (Scroll down the page.) https://www.michiganradio.org/post/stateside-threat-government-shutdown-climate-immigrants-history-great-lakes-steamships
ReplyDeleteAny "climate immigrants" to Michigan should be forewarned: You can expect greater fluctuations of heat in summer and cold in winter (this year's spread at my house was -15 to 96). You'll need twice the wardrobe to cope with this. Budget for higher heating and cooling bills. You'll have May, June, September, and October when you won't need the furnace or A/C.
Also expect potable water shortages as bottled water companies suck up reservoirs, cropland run-off to creates ever more toxic algae blooms, and pipelines run through sensitive areas such as the Straits of Mackinac.
Finally, bring a vehicle with excellent suspension. Our roads are a mess, and a higher population will erode them further.
We have a Legislature of Term-Limited Morons here, and there is no will to address any of these problems.
Time to build a wall from Toledo to Michigan City or, my preference, get annexed to Canada like the Yoopers are always talking about.
Oh, and if you fish, hope you like Asian carp. The DNR stocks the Great Lakes with other game fish, but as carp grow in size and number, it will eventually become impossible for anything else to live there. On the up side, I've seen carp actually jump in my boat while trying to fish for bass on inland lakes.
DeleteHow does Asian Carp taste? Our waters have been infested with venomous lion fish, a/k/a zebrafish. Efforts have been made to get us to eat them, but I've never seen one on a menu. And the live ones don't look very edible.
DeleteThere has also been an unsuccessful effort to promote Burmese python meat. Chicken looks better every day.
It's extremely bony, and that makes it labor intensive to clean and near impossible to fillet. I have never had it, but have been told it's pretty good, without the "wormy" taste that catfish have. I guess maybe that's because Asian carp are not bottom feeders.
DeleteThere's Asian carp in some of the rivers and lakes here, too. One thing they do is leap out of the water sometimes. Some people in boats have been hurt when they got walloped by a "flying carp".
DeleteWe also have problems with zebra mussels in some of the lakes. I don't know where they come from, but they're not native to the area. A lake near where my son lives has been drained twice to try and get rid of them. It appears to be an exercise in futility.
We have zebra mussels, too.
DeleteOff topic, did anyone see this? It appears that Boris Johnson's party has lost its majority. Not sure what that means for the Brexit deadline.
ReplyDeleteKatherine, You can watch Parliament doing what Congress has not the guts to do on Youtube (LIVE from the House of Commons) right now. That is how I am spending an afternoon indoors.
DeleteThanks Tom. Listening as we speak.
DeleteIt looks like Florida dodged this catastrophe. Now it's Georgia and the Carolinas that are at risk. I have no idea what will become of the Bahamas now. Island living is becoming a scary proposition in this changing climate.
ReplyDeleteThey are a British Commonwealth nation. Wonder if the Brits are too distracted by their own drama to be of much help? I am reading that food, water, and shelter are the immediate needs; the aid organizations will be needing funds more than donated stuff.
DeleteAlso read about a lot of pets separated from their owners. One lady took in 97(?!!) dogs into her house. She apparently wasn't in the worst storm path, but I can't imagine that house being habitable by humans anytime soon.
Yes, I wondered about help from the UK or even Canada, which is not beset with major political problems right now, but will get whatever's left of Dorian in the "cone" headed for Newfoundland. political.
DeleteThe U.S. and the Bahamas have a mutual aid agreement, so our assets, like the Coast Guard, can help without an act of Congress (which Mitch would never allow a vote on). We are having collections of money and canned goods (and diapers) for the next two Sundays. I wonder if we also will have some PTSD around here because "there, but for the grace of God..."
DeleteHopefully getting spared from the worst effects will make people more generous to those who didn't. I didn't think about diapers, but yeah, those would be a need, as well as pre-made baby formula. No one is going to have safe water to mix up the powder.
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