I rem,ember watching the touchdown and aftermath from Venezuela. I saw it, but I could not understand the magnitude of what the hurricane did to South Florida. A year later , I went to Miami with my partner to get some equipment quotes for our studio and place orders and a friend drove us to some of the location were the damage was still noticeable. I saw buildings that only the steel beams and concrete foundation remained standing while what once was the walls were littering the grounds. Acres upon acres of trees knocked down in one direction like gigantic roller just went over them. And that solitary car planted almost vertically in a field was the one that still bothers me for some reason. I shivered and thank the Lord I did not have to deal with hurricanes.
And God laughed.
Over two decades in Miami and I don’t even wake up unless a Cat 1 Hurricane is about to become a Cat 2.
Hard to believe it was that long ago. I was scheduled to fly some missions out of Jacksonville, they cancelled the day before, and I ended up driving a rental car back to northern Virginia, since I couldn’t get a flight out.
My Pop was working at the nuclear power plant at turkey point just before.
They were just done setting up for a 30 something day “shut down” maintenance period when they were told to pack everything up for the storm.
They loaded all their tools and equipment into a 40′ CONEX up to the top.
They later found it about few hundred yards north of where they left it.
Apparently, a tornado spawned by the storm picked it up and dropped it on the new steel building just across the road smashing it flat then picking it up again and dropping it a few more times it finally came to rest at the base of one of the fossil fuel stacks.
It hit the stack about half way up, they tracked its path of destruction by the paint it left on the building and the other places it hit.
They had to demo the stack because of the damages.
My parents would occasionally consider moving to Florida. We would say, “What about hurricanes?” “Oh, you get warnings about them ahead of time. Not like tornadoes here.” ” Mom, you do know that hurricanes spawn tornadoes, right? ”
They visited Florida a lot — Mom had an annual pass to Disney World a few years and got her money’s worth out of it — but they stayed in Ohio.
I went on a honeymoon cruise from MIA with my first wife in early August 1992 .. it was a 3day to Nassau and back to Port of Miami. Then spent 5days in key west. last day out stopped over in homestead holiday inn. it was destroyed the next day. but they still processed my credit card debit. good times.
I guess you saw this too,
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/storm_graphics/AT05/refresh/AL052019_5day_cone_no_line_and_wind+png/205313_5day_cone_no_line_and_wind.png
The 8am update… I just saw it. keeping fingers crossed