Actually the projections did at times have it maintaining 130mph CAT 4 at landfall, even though all models seemed to be in agreement it would weaken from the peak intensity. I specifically recall a few times the “projected landfall” flipped back and forth between 125mph and 130mph cat4. Those might have even been some of the last “projections” as the storm fortunately fell apart pretty quickly at the end. The issue with Tropicana field is it’s real world wind resistance wasn’t even close to its “rated” strength. I mean *if* the hurricane hit with peak intensity that’s a possible loss of life situation for those sheltering in that structure. But even with it failing at the lower wind speeds (not even 100mph), it should make one question how it ever got approved at all. It’s not just an “oops my bad” as these buildings are supposed to be certified by engineers. Maybe not the guy who originally designed and approved it in 1990. But it was laughably bad to have certified it more recently or conceived of this as a storm shelter in 2024. The roof seems to have been made of similar tarp material that people use to temporarily patch up their concrete tile roofs. I see those fail and get shredded all the time, just from the typical thunderstorms we get in FL - they start to have issues even at 40-50mph. Obviously the Trop was better than a retail grade roof tarp, but not MUCH better. I think going forward in FL these buildings need to be certified to 155mph and beyond.
I liked a lot of what he did early in his term. Pragmatic decisions with no easy answers. Since he got the idea he could be president it’s been all downhill.
I swear I remembered that after the nightmare of the Floyd evacuation, Florida decided it would use both sides of the interstate in one direction. No? OK, I found it. It was agreed upon, but then abandoned. New hurricane evacuation plan OK’d - Orlando Sentinel
Has it ever actually been done in FL? I imagine it’s just too much of a manpower PITA. I guess in areas where they have HOV lanes that capability is sort of built in. But doing straight up highway contraflow is a different ballgame entirely and the article you added above explains those reasons.
Yeah, it makes complete sense to do it ... until you actually try to do it. But apparently it's being done a few places. The Floyd evacuation was insane. I knew a woman who spent two hours on the on-ramp before turning around and going home. A guy who left Ponte Vedra and after seven hours slept on the floor of his office in Orange Park.
I thought they did use both sides of I-4 to evacuate the east coast ahead of one of the near miss hurricanes. From Volusia to Orange County. I just can't recall which storm it was.
Interested in a fact check on little Ronnie. He claims that he was the one who invented prestaging. That it had never been done in Fl before he became Gov. Seems a bit unlikely, as I know up here in NC they pre-stage for things like a 2 inch snow event. But maybe it is true.
Yep, pandering Ron. Hey, let's go pick fights with Disney and New School and pander to people who will never choose me over Trump. Why? It was so pointless, especially when Americans were craving that first iteration.
It reminded me of the old ODome roof. It ripped and was rebuilt with a hard roof. My guess is the trop roof was past its expiration date. Things are fine until they aren’t.
Let’s see how DeSantis deals with power outages and post hurricane clean-up and insurance claims. He’s got some dancing to do still.
Looking at it in hindsight, the number of deaths from this hurricane is very low at 17 to date. This storm was frequently compared to Katrina, which had a huge death of over 1,300. I would say DeSantis did a very good job on his advance work and then the follow through.
Insurance crisis?!?! Definitely time to give tax breaks to gas strove manufacturers. That’ll show em!!
Yeah things are little harder when you start out below sea level. Also, as many have stated, the models are so much better at pin pointing where the hurricane is going to hit. I don't remember with Katrina if it was predicted to be hitting NO or not. It also needs to be noted that NO is full of very poor people who aren't nearly as mobile as the folks living on the coast in FL.
