Hurricane Wilma - - - No Poker Tonight!
We just came through Hurricane Wilma - what an experience. We're located in Broward County, where the hurricane hammered us all (here in Broward, plus Miami-Dade and West Palm to the north). Fortunately, we all survived just fine. Many of the houses here are built like fortresses, being made from cement and cinder block walls, plus galvanized steel hurricane shutters (at least that's what we have, some of them are made of aluminum, which aren't quite so heavy to carry and install).
Wilma hit us first with winds out of the east/southeast, gusting to around 120 MPH or more. From my vantage point (looking out my garage door window), it was quite a sight. I watched as the poor hardwood trees took a real battering, losing limbs left and right. After what seemed like several hours, we finally entered the eye of the storm. It became extremely quiet outside, which was a bit eery, knowing the other side was going to strike at any time...
All of a sudden, the storm picked back up, and within just minutes we were in the western eye wall, which was very extreme. It started out as an extremely strong (est. 130 MPH + gusts) yet dry force, sustained to at least 110 MPH. After about an hour of that, most of the trees taller than 15 feet in height were down. I watched as the hurricane became even more fierce, adding the force of water to its repertoire. Once the east side of the storm touched the Atlantic Ocean, it grabbed and swung its aquatic armaments back around and slammed it into us with even greater force than before. This extreme pressure washing ripped roof tiles off, threw them around everyone's houses, and took out the balance of tree limbs that were missed by its initial assault. I can tell you for certain, this is not the time to be roaming around outside, with all of this debris blowing around at over 100 MPH and huge tiles coming off of houses and slamming around.
After many hours of being whacked by this beasty, we finally emerged to a cool, slightly windy day, where the cold front pushed on through...at least it was cool and reasonably dry.
Afterwards, in assessing the damage it was truly an amazing sight (pictures of which have been widely broadcast on TV). One of the most amazing things is that there are virtually no traffic signals remaining - anywhere. They're mostly just gone (missing), with an occasional signal unit dangling and swinging around above the road. This kind of damage took place across all three counties, so this was a huge storm.
That evening, the skies were as clear as I can remember ever seeing, along with an incredible sunset. With 98% of the tri-county area without power, it was like being out in the countryside or on the ocean at night - completely pitch black - no light, except that which emanates from the stars and the moon. For the first time, I've seen the Milky Way from South Florida - an awesome sight after such a day.
Fortunately, we had a generator that I've held on to since the Y2K era, so we were able to get powered up and ride out the post-storm in reasonably good shape, compared to those without power at all. The biggest challenge has been finding fuel, since there's virtually no gas stations with backup power in South Florida (another amazing fact). It sounds like there's going to be pressure mounting to require gas stations to maintain viable backup power to enable more widespread and rapid recovery from future such events (which seem very likely, given the recent weather patterns we've been seeing). It looks like our world is in for a lot more difficult weather, which many believe is a result of significant global warming. I recently spoke with several people who live in the Northeast U.S. They told stories of when they were kids (back in the 1960's) and their lakes and rivers freezing over in the winter, with up to several feet of thick, solid ice. During those days, snow piled up many feet high in the winter. In more recent times, they say the lakes and rivers barely freeze, if at all, and aren't safe to skate on any more if there's ice, since it's far too thin today. They don't often get enough snow to shovel or worry about. Perhaps it's just a phase we're going through and the weather will cycle back again - let's hope so. We can't undo what's been done and continues to be done to our world's ecosystem - it's the only one we have.
Rick
7:42:08 PM 
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