The cone of uncertainty is the strange shape you see in the graphic above. It’s one of those terms with which most people in South Florida are familiar. It means the predicted path of a hurricane becomes less certain the farther out in time you go and if you fall within the cone, you need a keep an eye on the news and check in regularly with the National Hurricane Center. You’re not supposed to focus solely on the broken black line that is the predicted path of the hurricane. This hurricane, by the way, is actually Tropical Storm Isaac, which as of 11 PM on August 23, is not yet a hurricane.
But today, August 24, marks the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Andrew, a category 5 hurricane that slammed into Homestead, Florida, in 1992, with recorded wind gusts as high as 177 miles an hour. – 282 km/h. Andrew was a small, compact storm that intensified rapidly.
I remember that I was in a drug store, picking up a prescription, when I saw a special weather alert about the storm on a TV behind the pharmacist’s counter. I saw the words Category 5 and that our area, just 70 miles north of Miami, fell within the cone of uncertainty. I rushed home and Rob and I started putting up our hurricane shutters – aluminum panels that took hours to install.
In those days, we had the Internet, but it was mostly message boards and bore little resemblance to the Internet in the 21st century. I don’t think the National Hurricane Center was even online back then. Hardly anything was online. Our daughter was just three at the time, so that night we all slept in one room, with the cats positioned in their usual spots. I heard wind and rain during the night, but nothing extraordinary. We woke up the next morning, still had electrical power, and our only damage was a downed papaya tree.
There wasn’t any news out of Miami until Dan Rather got down there a few days after the storm hit, then the full horror of the storm’s damage became apparent. At that time, it was the costliest hurricane ever and remains as one of the strongest to ever hit the U.S.
Now and then, in a grocery store, a coffee shop, restaurant, the gym, we meet someone who made it through Andrew by hiding in a bathtub, beneath a staircase, under a mattress. Someone who lost everything. After Andrew, people left the area in droves and moved farther north.
The hurricane seasons runs from June 1 to November 30, with a peak in late August and early September. So why would anyone, with any sense of weather history, schedule a convention on any coast in Florida during the peak? If Isaac, as a tropical storm or a Cat 1 hurricane, comes anywhere near Tampa during the Republican convention, as its predicted path indicates, any evacuations will be disastrous.
The locale of the convention is prone to flooding. With more than 70,000 delegates, protestors and media in attendance, where would that many people be evacuated to? Highways will be congested, hotels will be booked solid, it takes hours just to get out of Florida and that’s if you have any gas in your car.
Andrew changed a lot of the construction laws in Florida, particularly in terms of roofs and windows. After all, if your roof goes, so does the rest of your home. If your windows shatter, you’re screwed. Now, if you don’t have Andrew compliant roofs and windows, if your home isn’t constructed of concrete, your homeowners’ insurance is prohibitively expensive. After Andrew, more than a dozen insurance companies went bankrupt and many more fled the state.
After the 2004 hurricane season, when we were besieged by storms that seemed to crop up every two weeks, we bought a generator. It powered the fridge and a small TV and could charge cell phones, laptops. But we spent 10 days without electricity, in temps that reached the mid-90s during the day and not much better than that at night. I did a laundry by hand and put the clothes on the bushes to dry in the sun. When the heat became too much, we opened the fridge and just stood in front it, letting the cold air waft over us.
We live on a sentient planet. I first realized this when I saw Hurricane Andrew on a satellite photo and suddenly understood it possessed a kind of consciousness, that it, like all natural phenomena, spoke to us through signs and symbols. Right now the Republican party is in chaos, struggling to redefine itself, and how fitting that Isaac, whether it’s a tropical storm or a hurricane, will probably impact the convention in some way.
Like attracts like.
It’s going to be interesting. Stay tuned.
I don’t want to wish ill will on the residents of Tampa Bay, but I really do want to see Isaac play havoc with the RNC. They deserve it after what that party did to our country in the 2000s and trying to sabotage Obama’s electoral chances by doing nothing for the economy and unemployment. I believe that Obama is the president because of the psychological damage that Hurricane Katrina did to our country in 2005. It was a like a wake up call for most people. The previous year, Americans were patting themselves on the back for all the charity that Americans gave to the victims of the Tsunami in South Asia…while Katrina showed that our government failed in one of the most important tests. Bush’s poll numbers never saw 50% again after Katrina. He was always below that number for the final three years of his presidency. I believe that Obama’s rise in popularity was due in part to Americans wanting to redeem our country in the eyes of the world.
Interesting that the 2008 RNC was held in the Twin Cities…far from any hurricane threat, yet a hurricane hit the gulf coast at the start of the convention, causing Bush and Cheney to cancel in attending, much to McCain’s relief. Now, for the second RNC in a row, another hurricane threatens to wreak havoc on the Republicans. I do consider this to be a karmic storm. Mother Earth is definitely sending a message. But leave it to Pat Robertson to probably spin it in the wrong way.
Here’s to some good drama next week.
What happened after katrina was an abomination. The most bush could manage was a flyover three or four days after the fact.
This storm is going to drop a lot of rain. Tampa is already saturated. The convention locale is prone to flooding. Like you, I don’t wish any of the residents ill will, but it would be somehow satisfying to see
repugs evacuated, scared, and their convention disrupted by good ole mom nature.
Regarding Isaac and the RNC, there’s been lots of talk on all the news channels about the difficulty in protecting and/or evacuating even the number of citizens who reside in that area, much of which is situated blow sea level and is prone to severe flooding just from passing tropical storms, much less hurricanes. That’s why they evacuate even in minor CAT-1 hurricanes….the floods. With the potentially thousands upon thousands of added folks during the convention, it would be chaos multiplied exponentially. Can’t you just see all those repugs camping out in a high school evac center?? What a joke!
Totally off subject….am sure by now everyone has seen what happened outside the Empire State Bldg this morning at 9 am EDT…..the shooting. There were quite literally thousands of people on the streets at that busiest time of day there. Apparently a disgruntled worker who had been fired yesterday went back and murdered his boss and shot several other people. The owlrd has gone completely nuts. I saw the event moments after it occurred, as my Comcast news on the computer broke in. Guns…..in the hands of crazies as well as terrorists.
I’m betting the island of Cuba,, largely dissolves it
I’ve wondered about construction laws in such zones, looks like Andrew had an influence on this.
Like attracts like – very true, will watch with interest.
Can it really be twenty years since Andrew? I remember it so well, although I was in Boulder at the time, working at a center for atmospheric research, it was picked apart afterwards, for years. I do hope you get through this one intact, as well as my sister, who lives in Zephyrhills, south of Tampa. It will be interesting to see what happens with the Republican Convention.
This is not directly related to the above post but I came across this picture and someone’s comment on it. Here’s the picture: https://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0jf1liApS1qjgu85o1_500.jpg And here’s the comment: Mitt Romney’s family misspell their last name in the greatest Freudian slip in history. The trickster in me definitely appreciates this joke.