IRMAGEEERRDDD!

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

for those of you with pets, if you end up absolutely stranded and need food...

Is it bad I half expected this to end with something like "pets are edible" I know it's a horrible sentiment to even talk about, but if the alternative is eat your pet or starve, I'd imagine a disaster preparedness guide would recommend the former over the latter

Yes, it is bad. Very bad.
Most dogs are better people than humans.

[Rocketboy1313]

You know that feeling when the end of a semester is coming? That you are in a class that has been an issue for you all semester but is required.

You sit down and you look back over all of the assignments and tests you have gotten back, your attendance, and everything else that might affect your grade. None of it will help except to tell you how many answers you can get wrong on the final and still pass. It is useless, but you do it because actual "preparing" for the test has hit a wall. You just want to give yourself hope that a 65 on the final will do.

I have been making these calculations with Hurricane Irma. Watching the projections shift around, sulking about it all. I start to make assumptions, I start to do math.

Irma's current projected path, the line of best fit will pass within 15 miles of my house. Which means I will briefly be within the eye, the place where the worst winds are.

It is important to know that Hurricanes have rings of intensity, the edges are less destructive than the near core, and that is less destructive than the eye wall. There is drop off the further you are away but from the size and intensity of Irma the effective ring of destruction is said to be 110 miles across (though that has varied of course).

I have started counting. I used Google Earth to measure the distance from my house to the point that Irma makes land fall, 90-ish miles away. I then calculated a drop off rate for the storm’s size and intensity. I am almost certainly assigning too much power to these figures out of hope, but I am hoping that for every mile Irma travels over land its destructive radius will shrink .25 miles, it starts at the whopping 55 miles, so that is a small hope.

I am also hoping/projecting that the wind speed will drop 1 mph for every mile it travels over land, and I assume it will be a category 5 hurricane with 160mph winds when it hits the coast (though I can hope Cuba’s mountains drain it more and the waters of the strait feed it less). What is more I have measured the distance from its landfall to where they project it to be a Tropical Storm, if the drop off to Tropical Storm is a uniform process then my numbers are EXCEPTIONALLY optimistic.

I take all of these numbers and start making equations. X is the number of miles the hurricane has to travel before its destructive zone contacts my house. It starts out 90 miles away and its size drops slightly the closer it moves toward me. So, the equation is to solve for (X):
90 - X = 55 - .25X
35 – X = -.25X
35 = .75X
47 = X
(I rounded up to the nearest whole mile)

Next is to solve for the expected wind speed of the destructive layer. Remember, I am assuming it hits the coast at 160mph, and will lose 1mph for every mile traveled over land. So, the equation is to solve for (W).
W = 160 – X
W = 160 – 47
W = 113mph

Assuming that all of my assumptions are correct, I can expect the first substantial contact I make with Irma to be as a low Category 3 storm with winds around 113mph and a destructive zone whose radius of about 47miles.

I must stress multiple things here. I am not a meteorologist being the first. I am just a person trying to extrapolate data to make myself feel more secure, not because things are any safer in the real world, but just because “knowing” something makes me feel better. The other thing I must stress is that if the path shifts any more west, Irma will spend little to no time on land before reaching me. It will pass almost directly over me, and it is very likely that my hometown will be destroyed.

This morning I signed up for a routine background check and physical because I have been offered a job to work in my home town’s City Hall.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I'm so sorry. I'll pray for you, for what it's worth.

[LittleRaven]

Congrats on the job offer, Rocketboy! As a humble servant of the people myself, I hope you enjoy your new career in civil service. Given what's rolling your way, I suspect your town is going to need you.

I can virtually guarantee it will be a better fit for you than law enforcement, anyway.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Congrats on the job offer, Rocketboy! As a humble servant of the people myself, I hope you enjoy your new career in civil service. Given what's rolling your way, I suspect your town is going to need you.

I can virtually guarantee it will be a better fit for you than law enforcement, anyway.

I think he's saying that, with the town destroyed, the job might cease to exist as well. =S

[TGLS]

Isn't it urban planning? If the town's destroyed, they're going to need a new plan, right?

[Rocketboy1313]

The center of the storm is now projected to pass five miles from my house. And will make landfall later than thought meaning that it will be stronger. My previous estimates were the foolish exercise I had explained them to be.

I would prefer to start my new professional course without losing my family's home or all of the books, games, and movies my brother and I have collected over the years. There are so many little things around my house that I feel I have not taken the time to appreciate.

How many times I have seen it as too small.
We moved in a week before my fifth birthday. We were the only house on the street. It was a few years before Hurricane Andrew and long before Charley or Katrina. It is all wood frame. It is not going to handle 90mph winds for more than a couple hours. Shingles will go first. A lucky branch will find a window. The structure will start to flex and it will break apart like crackers. I will try to put some stuff in the core of the house, like computers and electronics, expensive things. Maybe the house will collapse over and not get scattered. Maybe there will be something left.

When we first moved here there were so many trees and so few houses. We worried about wildfires.

[LittleRaven]

Right now, Rocket, just make sure you and your family are as safe as you can be. Houses can be fixed. Collections can be replaced. People...not so much.

Thoughts and prayers are with you man.

[Dînadan]

As LR says, people are more important than things. While the sentimental value of your posessitions can't be evaluated with a number or price tag, that'll be a definitive zero if you're not there to value it, so what matters is that you and your loved ones make it through.

[Steve]

Good luck. At this point we should probably pray that it keeps going west into the Gulf before curving north... granted, that means the Gulf Coast takes the punch.