I wouldn’t call 80 mph sustained winds hitting Virginia, 7 dead, and millions without power overblown. And remember it’s just now hitting the major population centers.

It's a bad storm, but where are you getting 80mph sustained winds from? Here's a map of winds in the area and they haven't gone over 70 since it came ashore in North Carolina. Now the highest sustained winds are in the 60's. Sure, there will be gusts but this is nothing more than a tropical storm at this point.

Note to self, when you are better prepared then everyone else, prepare to get company. My initial bug-in plan was for 5, I am now sitting at 12 as had several family members that were in evac zones. Made a mad scramble for extra food and water today.

Personally, I expect little from the storm, but I would prefer to err on the side of caution, of course, there is still nothing from preventing a tree landing on my house. We will see how things progress.

Bugging in Brentwood Long Island.

C. Rowe

I was reading the blog and apparently this blogger is using a discrepancy between NOAA and Weather Underground wind readings as the basis of forming his opinion. In the comments section of that same post, I found this comment by someone who actually runs one of those WU weather monitoring stations.

It isn't the WIND that is the most danger, it's the WATER!

Wind can knock down trees and power lines and rip shingles off houses and toss tree branches through windows. Big deal!

What do you think is going to happen with the storm surge in low areas? What about the people who live in basement apartments? How easy is it going to be to get to the elderly, infirm, handicapped afterwards with a lot of debris washed in? What about all the hospitals in the low areas whose generators are in the basement, and patients are dependent on them for life support?

What about sewage and garbage mixed with the seawater?

If the power is out, and the cell towers down, how many people have POTS to call for help?

If Irene makes an abrupt U-turn and heads toward Britain, what is the worst thing for the people who left? That they have to come back? SO WHAT? They've had an adventure with no negative results except maybe they missed a day or two of work or school, and were maybe forced to think about doing a little more disaster prep in the future.

Suppose the "National Hurricane Center, media and government" downplayed the danger, no one had evacuated (except ETSers) and Irene intensified and slammed into Long Island and Manhattan at a full-blast Cat 4? Would you feel better about it?

Jeez loueez!

Sue

Well said Sue!

Just because it isn't the apocolyse doesn't mean it won't have serious consequences, or that those effects weren't mitigated by the advance warnings. I can't imagine that the family of the boy who was killed when a tree crashed through his apartment roof are going to criticize the warnings as over-hyped.

Yes, the water is more dangerous BUT hurricanes are measured by wind velocity, not water. A CAT1 is 75mph sustained or higher.

No, a CAT4 would not make me feel better.

My point is that the forecast was for a CAT3 hitting North Carolina and a CAT1 hitting New York. It was, in actuality, not even a CAT1 when it made landfall in North Carolina on Friday. Here it is Sunday now and they are still calling it a hurricane.

I believe much of the delay in calling this a tropical storm is political. Lots of powerful interests need this to be a "hurricane" all the way into New York. I mean, come on, they shut down the entire transit system of New York for this. It better be a hurricane when it hits!

The original purpose of this thread was for prep related discussion ahead of and during a hurricane. Now that the hurricane did not live up to your expectations, please don't troll and try to turn this into a political bash thread as it will not serve any purpose other then to have the complete thread locked. There are plenty of other lesser forums on the internet that would probably welcome your assertions.

Wait a minute..... Do you mean you're POd because the weather report was incorrect???

And you think weather is totally predictable???

Do the weather guessers in KY always get the next day's prediction right, much less the one for three or four days ahead?

Sue

Hurricanes, tropical cyclones, whatever you want to call them, are incredibly complex and large events that span hundreds of miles across. Things are not uniform throughout the whole storm but we need to make generalizations about the entire storm so people can have an idea of what to expect. Here's part of the Saturday 21:00 EDT statement from the National Hurricane Center:


So, sustained winds of 80mph in a part of Irene determines the classification and it is still a Cat 1. The fact that hardly any of that faster, eastern part of Irene has actually passed over land means that any land wind readings are going to be much lower.

If you look at the storm track, Irene has spent most of its time to the east of land, so residents have been spared the brunt of Irene's fury for the most of its journey up the coast, regardless of whether it's a Cat 1 or 3 or whatever at any given time. We should be thankful that it has mostly tracked parallel to shore because that's probably why Irene seems somewhat of a dud so far compared to what many feared.

If Irene's track took it further to the west when it went over North Carolina (and many earlier projections did predict that), then places like Cape Hatterias might've observed hurricane strength winds as the eastern section of Irene passed over land.

It's not easy predicting the track or how strong a rapidly changing hurricane will be days in advance but it's the best we can do for now. I feel sympathy for these hurricane forecasters, emergency managers, and all these mayors and governors. Like our swine flu experience, the people charged with protecting our welfare are almost guaranteed a "damned if you do, and damned if you don't" experience regardless of what they do or how things actually turn out.