Hurricane Matthew

It's grey here, a little breeze. We don't even have any rain yet. I'm about 4 hours north of cwh.

Don't get all depressed, it's coming, you'll get your hurricane. And afterwards go do some driving around before you say it wasn't that bad. There can be a horrifying difference in damage over just a couple of miles. There's going to be legitimate suffering, people losing houses that aren't properly insured, lots of personal property. If you come through unscathed there will be plenty of opportunities to go help.

mazdeuce wrote: Don't get all depressed, it's coming, you'll get your hurricane. And afterwards go do some driving around before you say it wasn't that bad. There can be a horrifying difference in damage over just a couple of miles. There's going to be legitimate suffering, people losing houses that aren't properly insured, lots of personal property. If you come through unscathed there will be plenty of opportunities to go help.

Oh trust me i know. Tornado ripped through minneapolis a few years ago. Friends house was fine. Two blocks east, flattened.

The call has gone out around my job for volunteers to assist post-impact with our offices and call centers in the region. This one has the potential to be orders of magnitude more devastating than Andrew, simply because the center is forecast to stay offshore while it travels north. Because of that track it won't lose strength until it starts to hit cooler water off the Carolinas

Looks like Lauderdale has dodged this bullet. Storm is going to hit north of us. Projected wind here should be 50mph or so. I can deal with that. Palm Beach and north, not so lucky. We will be watching and praying for them. We are getting a few gusts, light rain, will get much worse in a few hours. Hoping to not lose power, as we are one block from a major power substation, my power comes in direct from a 60' concrete pole. It should not fail. But, who knows. Just heard from a good friend in Colorado. He sounded more worried than I am. It's nice to have friends.

I have a home here in Homosassa empty powers on you can leech internet available bring beer /// PETS welcome /// take 40 over till you hit water

Any veterans of this stuff have any idea how traffic/gas supplies usually are? I may be heading down to help pick up the pieces as soon as it's done slamming into the Cape Canaveral area. Probably heading down 75, then east on 528 or 520. Should I be bringing enough fuel to insure I can make it from south GA and back without hitting a gas station?

Watching this closely because a bunch of you guys are down there about to brave it. Not much I can do here in central Texas, but know that we're hoping for the best.

Not sure where this site is hosted, but if it does go down, can y'all keep us updated on the GRM Facebook or Twitter feed?

(Never thought I'd be worried about a bunch of car nuts I've never met in real life.....)

-Rob

In reply to eastsidemav:

Supply should be ok until you get to the affected areas. Going down to the Cape you should be ok gassing up in Wildwood on 75 before you get on the Turnpike or in Orlando Metro.

In reply to eastsidemav:

The biggest problem isn't the lack of fuel, it's the lack of electricity to pump it out of the tanks. There will be some stations with generators pumping fuel, but there is a pretty good chance they will be very busy.

Our last major storm, we were 10 days to 2 weeks before stores were open to buy supplies, most gas stations were 3-4 days before generators were up and running to pump fuel. Some coastal areas will be even longer because the stores will be so severely damaged.

In reply to rob_lewis:

IIRC, this site is hosted in Atlanta. I won't swear to that though.

Generally speaking, gas should be available. In this area, gas stations were required to install big generators. Widespread power outages, there will be no ice available. Traffic will be nuts, especially if traffic lights are down. Street signs might be down, so finding your way around might be difficult. If there is a lot of debris on the roads, expect flat tires. Looky Loos will generally not be welcome. Had a real problem after Andrew. Drivers would ask for directions to the real damage. No. Go home. Can't predict what that area will be like, hoping for the best. Watch out for raggedy trucks with Alabama plates, they will be all over, looking for work. Storms bring out the best in some, the worst in others.

I stopped for gas on the outskirts of Charlotte yesterday and all they had was 87 octane. The good stuff was sold out. I wasn't sure if it was just a crappy station or if this was a lingering effect of the pipeline rupture a couple weeks back or if it was for what seemed like the entire population of Hilton Head heading north on I-77 used up all the gas.

From what I've seen in the past, if there is electricity you can probably find gas.

Thanks. If I head down, I'll be sure to fuel up often, and will bring a few gas cans anyway, just in case. I'm already planning on a tire repair kit and a few cans of fix a flat, along with other supplies. I'm not going to run around asking for directions to any destruction. I pretty much only care about one address in Cocoa Beach and one address in Palm Bay.

Toyman01 wrote: In reply to rob_lewis: IIRC, this site is hosted in Atlanta. I won't swear to that though.

Si, geolocation data says it's hosted by Linode in Atlanta.

I saw several trucks loaded full of gas cans. I'm not terribly worried. Guaranteed I know one place I can get it.

Yep, we are Linode, so the site will stay up while we are most decidedly down. Supposed to start getting ugly overnight, with a very eventful morning tomorrow.

Margie

I am in Palm Beach county, what sucks is that they did not open the locks to the lakes yet and they are full to the brim. Thats going to create unnecesary flooding. They can usually open them and have them within reasonable level in a couple of hours, but I think they missed their window of opportunity now.

BTW, didn't mean to sound callous as if I was only worried about the site. Just worried about y'all. I'm watching this thread more than any other today.

-Rob

The lake by my house:

My not very mobile grandparents live in a tarted-up mobile home community in Eustis. It's at least 60 minutes in from the coast, but having been there multiple times, any wind above a certain speed is going to about strip the place. I'm worried about their whole community and others like it inland. My prayers are with all of you.

Here in Palm Beach county the same regulations on generators at all gas stations which are regularly maintained. The reason the gas cans are in high demand is because folks who can afford it will run their big whole house generators 24/7 to keep the AC on and live their normal lifestyle. After Wilma some areas didn't get power for over a month so thats a lot of trips if you only have one 5 gallon can. I have friends who have 25-30 5 or 6 gallon cans so if there's a long term outage they only have to go fill cans maybe once a week.

The street names are molded into or painted onto the curbing at intersections here so people can find their way around after a storm takes away all the signs.

Slippery, where are you? The big canal at my house has been higher than normal since Monday while they've had upstream gates open to reduce the levels.

NOT A TA wrote: Slippery, where are you? The big canal at my house has been higher than normal since Monday while they've had upstream gates open to reduce the levels.

Lake Charleston area in Lake Worth.

I have been watching the lake since last week. They told me they would open the locks when they knew for sure it was headed our way. I guess they forgot.

My main fear with gas stations is that even though they have generators, they are out of gas.

At least my wife's car is diesel, thats usually less of a problem.