What is everyone’s temperature about the situation here? I have never lived in a hurricane prone area like Florida.
If I was basing it completely on national coverage, I am getting the impression that any region in the path of the Milton will get flattened by sudden sea rise. Even the AP article paints a grim picture:
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — A steady rain fell in the Tampa Bay area Wednesday morning as a mighty Hurricane Milton churned toward a potentially catastrophic collision with the west coast of Florida, where some residents insisted they would stay even after millions were ordered to evacuate. Stragglers face grim odds of surviving, officials said
However, looking into it more and trying to be less emotional. Florida’s emergency management system is issuing evacuation orders for many counties in Milton’s path. But some “inland” counties like Polk have no evacuation orders despite adjacent county, Hillsborough, having mandatory evacuation orders [1].
Then if you navigate to the county level (ie, Hillsborough). Only specific zones were issued mandatory evacuation. At this time, residents of Hillsborough county in zones “A” and “B” (and all mobile homes) given mandatory evacuation. People in other zones advised it was optional [2].
What did we observe with Helene? Were these local government evacuation orders completely wrong and devastated areas that previously had optional evacuation?
I used to do some hurricane stuff, and talked with some people who did national disaster ops in Katrina. This was the last storm where ops were based in the region, as they had to record last messages to their families and evacuate on foot from the flooding command center. A lot of people don’t know how to calculate risk and assume they will be fine. I hope they know to bring an ax into the attic if they retreat there.
What is everyone’s temperature about the situation here? I have never lived in a hurricane prone area like Florida.
If I was basing it completely on national coverage, I am getting the impression that any region in the path of the Milton will get flattened by sudden sea rise. Even the AP article paints a grim picture:
However, looking into it more and trying to be less emotional. Florida’s emergency management system is issuing evacuation orders for many counties in Milton’s path. But some “inland” counties like Polk have no evacuation orders despite adjacent county, Hillsborough, having mandatory evacuation orders [1].
Then if you navigate to the county level (ie, Hillsborough). Only specific zones were issued mandatory evacuation. At this time, residents of Hillsborough county in zones “A” and “B” (and all mobile homes) given mandatory evacuation. People in other zones advised it was optional [2].
What did we observe with Helene? Were these local government evacuation orders completely wrong and devastated areas that previously had optional evacuation?
[1] https://www.floridadisaster.org/evacuation-orders/
[2] https://hcfl.gov/residents/public-safety/emergency-management/find-evacuation-information
Helene grazed Florida. This is going to be a direct hit.
It’s looking like there was more storm surge with Helene. If Milton had hit 10-20 miles north though it would have been a toss up.
I used to do some hurricane stuff, and talked with some people who did national disaster ops in Katrina. This was the last storm where ops were based in the region, as they had to record last messages to their families and evacuate on foot from the flooding command center. A lot of people don’t know how to calculate risk and assume they will be fine. I hope they know to bring an ax into the attic if they retreat there.