This doesn’t look like pleasant weather.
I think you need a sacrifice. I recommend staking out your governor somewhere in the middle of that storm track. Work fast, it sounds like it’s going to be ripping across the state quickly.
If that’s not enough, you’ve also got an ex-president there who is pretty much good for nothing other than propitiating the gods.
Rich Woods says
Propitiating the gods? Which one would have him?
Well, OK, maybe Pluton still wants to build a Wall of Souls around the House of Hades that he never left. Build that wall! Build that wall!
wzrd1 says
Hey, at least he got some of the vulnerable asylum seekers out and lodged in a safe state.
With zero explanation of where the airline ticket money came from…
Matt G says
Why aren’t the conservatives braying about how this is Divine Retribution for the Texas-to-Massachusetts stunt?
PZ Myers says
Also, Cubans didn’t deserve this mess.
seversky says
Speaking as an Ian, I would like to say it’s nothing personal – unless Ron de Santis happens to get in the way.
outis says
Meanwhile, that pan de dios Tucker Carlson reminds us that hurricanes are scams (except this one, which is rolling towards his vacation home).
https://boingboing.net/2022/09/28/tucker-carlson-says-hurricanes-are-scams-unless-theyre-headed-towards-his-house.html
From the point of view of evolution, maybe Repubs are gunning for extinction? Ignoring a raging mass of roaring air barreling towards you doesn’t look like a winning stategy for survival.
birgerjohansson says
Idea: spread a meme the next big category 6 hurricane is a scam or at least vastkt exaggerated.
And hint that people should own the libs by going to the place expected to get worst hit.
birgerjohansson says
Spelling: should be ‘vastly’ .
.
Trump told guests he wasn’t using the same White House toilet as Obama.
PaulBC says
Where’s my magic sharpie when I need it?
strangerinastrangeland says
If a natural disaster hits a blue state then there is very often some religious conservative nutcase (redundancy, I know) saying that this is God’s wrath due to support of Obama/Biden/homosexuals/transsexuals/insert-any-concept-that-supports-equal-rights-for-people? Well, God seems to have a clear opinion about the people and politics of Florida then, doesn’t he?
PaulBC says
strangerinastrangeland@10 I’m sure rightwing religious nutcases would have been saying that about Florida until fairly recently (before 2000 anyway).
tacitus says
I heard the talking about hurricanes on Catholic radio yesterday. During that one conversation, they talked about over a million Catholic parishioners being directly in Ian’s path observing how deadly it could be, and how their (as in a bunch of Catholics) prayers had once caused a Cat 5 hurricane to miraculously reduce to a Cat 1 overnight just before making landfill somewhere in central America.
No such divine mercy on show for those Tampa parishioners today, apparently, as Ian rapidly strengthened, as forecast.
A divine shrug instead, perhaps?
robro says
Looks it’s making landfall in the Ft. Myers area, well south of Tampa. The offshore islands could be heavily damaged as they’re little more than sandbars. When I was on Sanibel Island in 1972, it was beautiful and largely unspoiled, but I gather there’s been a lot of growth since those days.
PZ Myers says
I saw a video of Florida Men in the Ft Myers area trying to swim in the storm surge. They were getting slammed around fiercely, and were lucky not to have been smashed into a pier.
You’d think everyone would know that swimming or surfing or sailing are bad ideas when a hurricane is sweeping in. Not Florida Man!
Jim Balter says
I think it’s the GOP that propitiates their orange baboon.
robro says
I saw a video of a guy…maybe a weather man…sitting in a car reporting on the storm. He may have been in Punta Gordo, which is across the bay from the coastal islands, but he might have been out on the islands. There were some big palm trees a short distance from him, and like most any tree, they can come down in high winds. Seemed crazy to me.
hemidactylus says
Not sure how much longer I will have power. Been getting outer squalls mostly, but there be tornadoes in some of them. Yipes. Ian landed at Cat 4 (maybe 5) over 100 mi SW of me. Projections are for it to choke down to Cat 1 toward TS strength before it reaches me and exits to terrorize some other coastal states. Not my first rodeo. I hate these frickin’ rodeos. So glad I’m far from ground zero, but rando tornadoes can ruin your day far from a hurricane core! Broward was getting nailed last night. The rains will be Biblical.
Check Reed Timmer’s Twitter feed for some crazy Ian landfalling footage. I didn’t catch it live and haven’t checked thoroughly but I think it got so bad where he was that he abandoned his Dominator truck for a building.
https://twitter.com/ReedTimmerAccu/status/1575164618091429888
“Abandoned dominator fore. Salvaged science bag. Retreated to shelter. Very intense”
A bit different from chasing tornadoes in the Midwest.
birgerjohansson says
It is not enough to have an extremely robust building, the floor needs to be well above the ground if you want to be certain your stuff will not be ruined.
I am told the old cemeteries in New Orleans had crypts that were raised above ground level to prevent the dead from being flushed out in s hurricane.
hemidactylus says
Not great but better than 155 mph:
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCUAT4+shtml/282157.shtml :
SUMMARY OF 600 PM EDT…2200 UTC…INFORMATION
LOCATION…27.0N 81.9W
ABOUT 15 MI…25 KM ENE OF PUNTA GORDA FLORIDA
ABOUT 110 MI…180 KM SSW OF ORLANDO FLORIDA
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS…130 MPH…210 KM/H
PRESENT MOVEMENT…NNE OR 20 DEGREES AT 8 MPH…13 KM/H
MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE…951 MB…28.08 INCHES
robro says
brigerjohanson @ #18 — Cemeteries in New Orleans do have above-ground crypts, which it’s kind of famous for. Tours would cite the idea that they were to prevent bodies getting washed away in hurricanes. I’m not sure how true that is. New Orleans was a very Catholic city and I believe Catholics often use crypts. I live near a Catholic cemetery…many Italians…which is up a hill well over 100 feet above sea level and far from any flood waters. The cemetery has many above-ground crypts, although there are some folks buried in the ground. I went to one of the old cemeteries in Paris years ago and there were a lot of crypts there. In any case, I believe Hurricane Katrina caused a lot of damage to New Orleans cemeteries, so if that was part of the purpose of the practice as opposed to some tradition then it may not have worked so well.
Oggie: Mathom says
My in-laws live just north of Orlando. So far, they are fine — still have power and cell service. My mother-in-law is planning ahead, though. She anticipates losing power, so she had ice cream for lunch. Which ice cream? Yes.
She lives alone (FiL died about a year ago), but her son (Wife’s brother) lives next door with his wife. They are in a new development and are in a low area (so the high winds should, for the most part miss them high, and the road is about four feet lower than the house so, as long as the drains work, they should be okay.
hemidactylus says
Still kinda bad, but a hopeful trend:
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS…105 MPH…170 KM/H
From 9pm EDT NHC update.
That’s a midrange Cat 2: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutsshws.php
jrkrideau says
@ 4 PZ
Cubans didn’t deserve this mess
No they do not but they deal with it.
A friend here in Canada reports getting a zoom call from a slightly drunk Canadian friend in western Cuba hunkered down in a shelter. He kept waving his phone around to show the bands that were playing.
Apparently Cubans prepare for hurricanes.