I really don’t have time for this.
A diary I’ve spent time in has some disinformation, based on anecdote. This is how fake news gets spread. “I heard from someone”---no. Always verify information in an emergency.
Incidentally (and using the same hurricane list no less) my town was flooded 6 years ago to the day during a tropical storm, and we heard all sorts of rumours that simply weren’t true, and lots of people were bugging town officials who were busy trying to keep folks safe. My little town’s officials spent tons of time debunking them, and it’s a bloody waste of time when they have work to do.
At any rate the diary’s premise is millions are trapped on the roads and all of them are parking lots.
They are not.
We live in an age where:
- traffic cameras are ubiquitous and accessible
- everyone has a smartphone with a traffic app on it
- everyone can pull up those maps on the internet
- those traffic apps are interactive, so they’re updated better than automated government traffic counters
I went and looked at both Waze and Google Traffic. The worst traffic jams in the southeast? In Georgia north of Savannah on I-95 into South Carolina, on I-10 west of Tallahassee, and on I-75 at the FL/GA line up into GA toward Macon. There’s a big parking lot south of Atlanta but that’s probably Atlanta commuter traffic. For most of Florida on the main interstates and turnpike, traffic is moving (slowly on I-10 and I-75 around Gainesville).
Fuel shortages are a problem in places, and people are stuck on the side of the roads. Florida’s decision not to contraflow today was probably not the best in an otherwise well-organized emergency response (but, because it doesn’t appear Georgia or Alabama contraflowed, there’d be traffic jams at the border. Contraflow requires cooperation between states, and sometimes these three do not cooperate. They take each other to court over water enough).
Believe it or not, there’s a plan for people stuck on the roads. There are plentiful shelters across Florida. Also, believe it or not, emergency management does nothing but plan, hosting table top exercises, paying multiple big global firms to write hazard plans, and so on, all year. You don’t know about it because your media has little interest in covering these events (although I was impressed that Pacific Northwest media covered its recent big multi-state drill.)
If you’re worried that people are going to die in their cars, well, they won’t.
Verify the anecdote is true. Thanks.
IRMA
Irma is currently a category 5 hurricane again, as recon found winds in excess of 160mph just after the 8pm update. It is making landfall along the northern coast of Cuba.
The forecast is still the worst-case scenario for Florida, as all of peninsula Florida will likely experience hurricane force winds of some level, beginning late Saturday night from south to north. I am projecting landfall between Key West and Homestead (yes, a huge distance) and then a northward ride north along the spine of Florida. I do not know whether Irma will be a 4 or a 5, that is all dependent on how long it lingers near the Cuban coast tonight and tomorrow. Some model guidance takes the storm’s center toward Fort Myers at landfall. Things are pretty well set so I’m not going to spend a lot of time with model runs 26 hours before first probable landfall. I don’t think a lot will change at this point.