My friend John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel, has never been known for mincing words. He’s always been a “tell it like it is” kind of guy.
This is what he had to say on Facebook today:
Latest computer spaghetti map on Irma.
Each line is the path predicted by a different computer model. Most hit Florida hard.
Take a trip west and live. It you stay put your ssn on your arm with a sharpie.
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I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest the comments were made to shock people into evacuating long before the storm arrives.
Back to your outrage…
“I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest the comments were made to shock people into evacuating long before the storm arrives.”
As any person with decades of experience in this technical field, and decades of experience in communicating with the public, ought to do, I feel, Steve . . particularly now, with public trust of the mass media and Governmental type experts very low . .
I was setting up a major corporate meeting today in Orlando, and at about five o’clock, they told us never mind, take it all back down, they cancelled the meeting (the attendees would have been trying to fly into OIA during the storm itself… nope.)
A number of other meetings and shows are shutting down early. A lot of people are losing at least a week’s worth of work, just from the preemptive cancellations.
Surf Expo has been running this week, and it’s ending early, too, but a lot of the attendees have been out at the east coast of Florida catching the hurricane surf.
There is usually not much, because the Bahamas blocks the swells.
One reason why South Florida, and even North Florida, has little wave action.
SSN should go on your torso, not arms. Per the guys at the EOD school.
Funny, I know several EOD alumni and they have service number, blood type and NKDA(if applicable) tattooed along the line of rightside collar bone. Cuz you never know when you ain’t gonna be able to speak.
Hype is hype, even when hyped by one of the greats.
It’s becoming a meme. It was said on Bolivar before Ike. That was in 2008 and likely not the 1st time.
It will be interesting to see the category if it actually does make landfall. Also, in addition to the High, there is the cold front.
The predictions for Irma’s direction are precisely why we shouldn’t believe climate change predictions (and that goes for either cooling or warming). They can’t predict the future. They can’t even predict which direction a hurricane is going to go. The phrase “Anything can happen” is being repeated many times in the weather forecasts that I’m seeing.
They are predicting the exact position of a leaf floating on a swirling river.
They try to keep track of the swirls in the river and the position of the leaf…but it is hard.
But they do better than anyone could just by guessing.
Not anyone, the first time I saw Irma picture, and its location, I’ve imagine exactly the same path. Sud to North more o less close to Florida!
Does not count unless you wrote it down and showed people.
I imagined it would mimic hurricane Donna.
I wrote about Donna back in August on my FB page…I had a weird felling about this season.
I noted that Donna went over the exact location where I now live…it was uninhabited woods then.
Personally, I wanted to be wrong, and still do!
Not too sure about that 🙂
I heard this story about writing the SSN for the Houston hurricane. Does he repeat the warning for each hurricane or did some other person give that warning?
no he heard that warning and thought he would be a tough guy by issuing a similar one
it is amazing how many stupid comments have been made in this tread.
There are 20 million people in Florida and a few of them are not going to be able to evacuate. No, really, we can not evacuate the whole state.
I went from Daytona to Orlando on Wednesday at 4:00pm. The I-95 was a parking lot headed north. I-4 east bound towards I-95 was a parking lot. In the Orlando area the toll roads were all a parking lot headed out of the city. I was going in to the city so I was zipping along in light traffic. I could not have gone back to Daytona in under 8 hours I bet.
Flights are cancelled. There is no motel rooms available in the whole state according to a co-worker (with a policeman husband). She tried to book one in north Florida. You can not stop and get gas even if you do move on the interstates.
Yes, make fun of those who don’t think they can evacuate. May Karma get your stupid ass back in days to come.
The middle of the night may offer an opportunity…at least earlier in the week.
But I am guessing about that. I have been getting around OK all week, went to work Tuesday and Wednesday, and will go for a little while in the morning.
Wednesday I drove all around Fort Myers and Estero and was on the Interstate a couple of times in each direction…it was not crowded then.
On Tuesday morning I was hearing all the gas stations were out or had crazy long lines. On my way home I stopped at the Racetrac gas station at I75 and Luckett Rd, drove right up to the pump and filled six five gallon cans and my truck.
On Wednesday evening I stopped at a WAWA and filled up a bunch more gas cans and my car…there was no one around and they had plenty of gas. They even had plenty of the ethanol free stuff they sell for about 40 cents more…much better for small motors like outboards, chain saws and generators.
Get up at 6 AM and go to a large truck stop gas station…they have preorders standing for gas every single night. Yu will get gas. Costco will have water if you are there when they open each morning.
You can even get gas cans if you think about when the trucks arrive and show up then…in the middle of the night.
I noticed today that none of the retailers will say when they have trucks coming. They just say trucks will be coming.
Got to know how to work it, where ever “it” is. Being in a pre-disaster zone is always kinda bizarro. Then it hits and things become truly strange.
Yellowstone is nice this time of year. Pack up the car and go visit.
This is when the first blizzards usually begin to dump on those mountains, no? Maybe a few more weeks.
BTW, IMO, Yellowstone is beyond nice at any time of year.
I found this after a few minutes of searching…traffic engineer stats.
Two interstates out, Some smaller roads.
Capacity of these smaller roads, and even US 27 and 301 and US1 and any others is in the thousands per day.
I think beyond certain amounts of cars, rates of travel slow so much the number of cars passing a given spot might decrease instead of increasing. One accident and people can start running out of gas and then having big problems. Lots of elderly in Florida.
So, for a four lane interstate, the capacity is given as 72,000 car equivalents per day.
Maximum theoretical flow rate is listed at 1900 vehicles per hour per lane, whatever that means.
That is way above the capacity given separately for a four lane road. i think this must mean two in each direction.
I-75 is three for most of the way, in each direction so 108,000 vehicles per day. Contraflow doubles that , although probably people are not going very fast with no signage facing in the proper direction.
http://www.mikeontraffic.com/numbers-every-traffic-engineer-should-know/
If I would have gone west I would be right in the path since it has now geared west. Maybe the state should implement better and more ways to evacuate and during hurricane season have a large supply of fuel to that people are NOT stranded due to the lack of fuel for the transportation out.
I heard the Savannah GA weather lady say on air you can call the emergency evacuation numbet all you eant but No One Will Be Coming To Get You.
What a horrible eay to word it. People are already scared and the lack of fuel to purchase and get out is not out fault and to scare people with such insensitive comments is terrible.
Evavuation in such highly poppulated areas is very difficult without the lack of necessary supplies to do so.
So I guess I will wrap my drivers license around my neck since deliveries of gas to stations in my area stopped days ago. I prefer not to have my social security number out there for the evil people to get and use. Florida has had major price gouging on all needed items for preporation of the storm. And shame on you guys for placing the blame on people who had “No choice but to stay” due to the above.
Please have a little more compassion and ways of saying you need to leave.