How many of you are living in or near a natural disaster at this very moment?

I get smoke from Wildfires in British Columbia. Also Red Deer is under a heat warning.

How close is “near”?

I live in Northern Califoria, there are fires in the mountains, but they are not a threat to me.

There was an earthquake this morning, but all it did was wake some light sleepers.

I am not, and am incredibly grateful for this.

I find it interesting that one of your topics is “blizzard”. Growing up in Western New York and now living in NE Ohio, I don’t think of blizzards as disasters. Annoyances, yes, but not disasters. It’s interesting to see another perspective. :)

I’m also in Northern California; seems there are always a number of wildfires going on in the summer, but they never seem to happen very close to me; they just make the air quality shitty.

About 5 years ago, here, there was a hurricane and the power was out for 8 nights. Two local teens were killed when a large tree fell on the house they were in (one was a resident, one was a guest). I stayed in a resort about two hours away for the majority of the time. It was late October and to me, quite cold, especially without heat. I was grateful for a friend’s time at the timeshare resort. It made a tough situation way better. Here, there were gasoline shortages at the pumps. I’m glad I wasn’t around. Where I stayed, in Massachusetts, there were no gas shortages. I’m also grateful that the boss I had at the time was very tolerant of me calling in day to day and saying “there’s still no power at home, so I’m not returning.” My daughter’s school was also closed for those 8 days, so even if I came home and went to work, I don’t know what I’d have done with her during the day. I can’t sleep when it’s cold so I wouldn’t have been sleeping. It would have been terrible to remain in the house.

After that, there was a lot of tree cutting near electrical wires in southern NY and CT. I am happy there’s not been such a diaster since.

Other than hurricanes and snowstorms, there’s usually not much else.

I live in a country where Donald Trump is president. That’s disaster enough.

No weather or similar threats this week. But if Irma comes ashore, it could all change.

No local disasters. Just the national one in Washington DC and it is not just the El Presidente

We’ll see what Irma’s plans are. I’m not joining the milk-and-bread rush yet.

Where are you located, @Muad_Dib?

Central Florida. Not in any danger of storm surge and no significant flooding risk. Unless she hits the coast at a 3 or better, my biggest real risk is running out of whiskey before the shops open up again.

@Muad_Dib: I see. :)

NorCal here too, Sierra Nevada foothills. Hotter than hell with numerous surrounding fires and crappy ozone/ air quality advisories. No fires threatening but this is the time of year where the whole damn state is going up in smoke. Sucks big time.

I’ve got drought and major wildfire, and only a short relapse from heat wave (probably partly from all the wildfire smoke).

We were evacuated for two weeks at the beginning of July for a Forest fire that was coming straight for our town does that count?

Western NY. Very few natural disasters occur in this area (besides snow). We are several hundred miles from the Atlantic ocean so we need not fear tsunamis or hurricanes. We are relatively close to Lake Ontario which moderates the climate and is ~ 250 ft above sea level so increasing ocean depth won’t be a problem.

The closest “natural disaster” we have now is the recent discovery of a Bald Faced Hornet’s nest on a neighbor’s property. They are quite dangerous to humans and if disturbed will chase victims 300 ft, 100m, before breaking off the attack. They have scared birds from feeders.

Two nights ago we sprayed the nest and removed it yesterday. But there are still dozens of hornets visiting oriole feeders and taking all the sugar water.
There’s probably another nest somewhere. Darn it! .

I’m in Southern California. I’m about 50 miles from the biggest wildfire ever recorded in Los Angeles history.

And we are still in drought conditions. Going on about year 7.

@Kardamom It’s a bloody hell across the state. Just read that over 7,500 firefighters are working on 25 fires right now. The air quality here is beyond horrible Its like a nuclear winter scene. Dead, brown trees everywhere, smoke haze so thick it is obscuring the mountains, nasty. I feel for you my southern comrade in hell.

Fucking Irma has my attention. The past two years, my house has been flooded by storms this time of year. I don’t really have many possessions anymore, but it’s still shitty.

The worst storms we get here, usually come from the Cape Verde area. I usually ignore the hurricanes, unless they get too close. But Irma is scary. I’m afraid it will make landfall nearby. I did see one model where it will head south of Florida and enter the Gulf of Mexico, where it could hit southern Texas. That would sick for them.

My brother is in Houston. He has been very lucky with the circumstances.

I’m about 5 miles from the La Tuna wildfire, which I think is the one @Kardamom is referring to.

Hey Brian, I was wondering if you were okay down there. 5 miles, not very far, be safe!

Possibility of Irma making landfall on the East Coast. Watching and waiting – not too worried yet.

It is predicted that a major earthquake will hit Memphis, Tenn., US, in the next 50 years. Tornado warnings and the occasional hit occur annually. The mighty Mississippi River flooded around 10 years ago and caused a great deal of damage in the downtown area. About 15 years ago, the town was struck by “Hurricane Elvis”, which left 3 out of four grids of the whole area without power in the summer heat of this southern town for up to two weeks. Ice storms occasionally happen during the winter months.

Given the state of affairs, politically, environmentally, maybe it’s just time to launch about 40,000 drones carrying nuclear warheads and go for the full monty do-over. LOL

Colorado here, on the western edge of the prairie, within sight of the Rockies.
Almost hot as hell with numerous surrounding fires and crappy ozone/ air quality advisories. No fires threatening but this is the time of year where the whole damn state west is going up in smoke.

Yeah, we are all doomed, a flaming hot sandwich of charred states. Ugh!

@tedibear I don’t think of blizzards as disasters.

I grew up in Illinois, just outside of Chicago, and I lived tin the hurricane zones of the Southern US. I don/t think of normal blizzards as disasters anymore than someone living in the coastal south or southeast would think of normal tropical storms or hurricanes as disasters. But when they take on the size and strength of a Sandy, or a Katrina, or a Harvey (and now Irma), I start to think that normal big storms are becoming the exception, and the superstorm is the new normal, especially with the rising sea levels and sea temps we’ve been seeing as a result of global climate change.

IMHO, we can argue for years whether it is man made or not. We can and must do something to mitigate these effects.

It appears an awful lot of us are experiencing natural disasters lately.

zenvelo, DominicY, Jeruba, Coloma, JohnPowers

Strauss

@Strauss LOL. I’ve been above the Mason-Dixon only once during the winter. Boston, 1978. I was only supposed be there for three days, so I didn’t bring any heavy winter clothes with me from Florida. LOL. Tell me a blizzard isn’t a natural disaster. I was stuck inside Logan for more than a week.

Brian1946, Kardamom

NomoreYA, snowberry and all our other Texans

McGrimm and Hurricane Matthew last year, and now JLeslie and McGrimm under threat of Irma

janbb and all our Northeasterners hit by Sandy in 2012

@Pied_Pfeffer I worked a lot of those seemingly back-to-back Mississippi floods as a member of a DMAT back in the 1990s and early 2000s. I’ll never forget this one guy, a Memphis restaurateur who lost his whole business back in one of those floods in the ‘90s. He put up a tent, dragged out a bunch of stainless steel gas grills and ovens, put his crew cooking up all his stock and he personally fed us, personally served us all. He fed anyone that was there until all the food was gone. What a relief it was from all those MREs. I’ll never forget that guy. That man had heart.

I’m getting the outer bands of Irma at the moment. Just a bit of wind and rain. But I got lucky. I’m in the Windwards, in the lower part of the Leewards, on St. Lucia at 14°N 61°W and by now she is at 17°N 55°W moving WNW 244° toward the Virgins at about 12mph. So, we should get only heavy rain, wind and seas beginning tomorrow night. It looks like the Virgins and Puerto Rico are going to get hit hard.

I’m in NY right now, but will be home in time for Hurricane Irma to be nearing FL. I doubt it will make landfall in FL, it’s so far out its difficult to be sure though. Even if it does come to FL, I live in the interior north of Orlando, so usually very little happens there, except for messiness from outer bands or leftover tropical storm type of stuff. I do have friends and relatives on the southwest coast though.

@LuckyGuy: How did you remove the nest?

Typo: southeast coast.

@Espiritus_Corvus When I grow up I want to be like you!

@jca. Nest removal was a 4 step process.
1)The night before, at 51F from the comfort and safety of my neighbors car I sprayed it with Spectracide Pro. fast knock down spray. And sprayed another can all over the outside.
2)I went out the next morning, 47F, I checked the temperature with a thermalimager to verify no activity. I possibly noticed a bit of residual heat (<0.1 C) so I hit the nest again and waited about an hour.
3) I filled my firepit with newspapers and drizzled old engine oil over the top. Then I stuffed a large black contractors bag about ¼ full with newspapers and oil and placed it under the nest.
4) I asked a neighbor to cut the branch with loping shears and I caught the nest in the bag as it fell. I carried the whole thing to my waiting fire pit and tossed a match onto the newspapers. Whoosh!!!

Had the nest been out of reach I would have taken it down with my Remington 1100 and a couple of shells loaded with #6 shot

^^LOL

I blew it on Brian1946 and Kardamom. It was supposed to be this:

Brian & Kardamom

I have family living in Pasadena. They are closely watching the La Tuna fire.

I feel like this Q is counting down to the apocalypse.

I’ve lived through like 37 apocalypses so far. What’s one more?

@JLeslie Zombie or YARN?

Lol. The YARN is more my style.

Fire. Fire. I’m so close to the La Tuna fire that my car was covered in ash. And I can’t breathe. Also, we just got out of a long and stifling heat wave.

@tinyfaery So sorry to hear that. Take care.

@tinafaery . That sounds pretty scary. Can you not go somewhere else until the fire is out? I’m not very experienced with large wildfires. We used to have them.when I lived in the country, but they never seemed dangerous because it was all swampy…

That’s the west right now, ashes to ashes.

I think there was a story from Italy a couple months ago, about like 60 people getting killed by a fire while in their cars. That would really suck…

^ Portugal

Well. Being killed by a firestorm seems like enough deterrent to me, to get the hell out. I hope it works out….

Every fucking time the wife threatens to cook

@ucme . Do yall have any natural disaster problems in Britain? Seems like I can’t remember hearing about any… Obviously, earthquakes are a possibility anywhere, but what else?

Natural disaster problems in Britain?
Boris Johnson

@Espiritus_Corvus It looks like you dodged the Irma bullet. I was wondering how people on islands prepare or evacuate when such a storm is heading their way. There’s no place to go.

^I’ve stayed here for every hurricane. Even Hugo (I was about 2 miles from the ocean at the time.)

You just hunker down, and wait for it to pass. Hugo was AMAZINGLY powerful. It sounded like there was a locomotive going around the house. Constant debris crashing into the walls. The sounds of trees splitting, and tearing. There were so many trees that hit my house, but I think they held the roof on… If you drive north on highway 17, you can still see swaths of downed trees in the forests from Hugo. There are still a few boats scattered around the marsh from then too.

Once, I stayed in our VA hospital for one. In such a big building, I couldn’t even tell it was stormy outside. I imagine that the people on those islands have been through this before. I don’t envy them, but hopefully they have shelters.

IfI were religious, I’d certainly be praying that Irma will not come close to me. But it’s looking like I’ll get at least some effects here in Charleston…

Hoping for Irma to pass us by. Sandy was terrible.

@LuckyGuy Sure did. ::whew:: The worst we got were 40 kt winds, rain and 7 foot seas.

But now we have Jose, who started lower than Irma, at 12° Lat off Africa, which will put him right on our beam if he doesn’t climb north a little faster as he makes his way west. He went Cat 1 at noon today. I’m at 14°. He has a few hundred miles of warm open water before he gets here, so he’ll rapidly intensify. Hopefully, Irma sucked enough energy out of the path to keep him reasonably civil.

So we’ll be under Tropical Storm conditions and Hurricane Warning again tomorrow, Hurricane Watch on Friday and possibly Hurricane conditions on Saturday.

Jose Update

Welcome to Hurricane Alley

Best of wishes to all our Floridians and East Coasters and here’s hoping Irma will lose some strength over the Greater Antilles.

^Be safe bro…

^^Thank you. You too, my friend. Keep us posted.

Will do. I got some supplies last night, and I guess I have a few days too. Fingers crossed…

Irma is coming for a visit, she should be here Monday morning. The bitch.

Where are you at, @seawulf575 ?

^SE NC

Man, that Mexico quake, the end is near, clearly.

Fires, floods, earthquakes, @Coloma.

Yeah. This has been one helluva year. That’s why I asked the question.

Don’t forget the locust plagues.

California is on fire.
Washington is on fire.
Oregon is on fire.
Montana is on fire.
Utah is on fire.
Colorado is on fire.
British Columbia is on fire.
Nova Scotia is on fire.
Greece is on fire.
Brazil is on fire.
Portugal is on fire.
Algeria is on fire.
Tunisia is on fire.
Greenland is on fire.
The Sakha Republic of Russia is on fire.
Siberia is on fire.
Texas is hit by Cat 4 hurricane and is underwater, as Cat 5 Hurricane Irma approaches FL, having already wreaked devastation in the Caribbean.
India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, experience record monsoons.
Sierra Leone and Niger experience massive floods, mudslides, and deaths in the thousands.
Italy, France, Spain, Switzerland, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia are in the grip of a triple digit heat wave (dubbed Lucifer).
Southern California continues to swelter under triple digit heat.
In usually chilly August, the city of San Francisco shatters all-time record at 106 degrees, while it reaches 115 degrees south and east of the city.

UPDATE

As of the latest NHC update from one hour ago, Irma has been downgraded to a Cat 4 with sustained winds of 135mph/216kph, is heading W from the NE Cuban coast into the Florida Strait and the Keys tonight and will possibly enter the Gulf of Mexico early tomorrow morning. She is expected to ride up the central mountain ridge of Cuba and there is a good chance that this may slow down her sustained winds significantly. This is slightly better news for Central and SE Florida, but bad news for the west coast of Florida where Seek lives and possibly Texas, the soil of which is already thoroughly saturated from Harvey.

Hurricane Katia has entered the Bay of Tampico as a Cat 2 with sustained winds of 105mph/168kph and is crawling due W at 5mph/8kph, which is good news for Texas, but bad news for the central Gulf coast of Mexico.

Jose has been upgraded to a Cat 4 with sustained winds of 150mph/240kph and is moving WNW at an unusually rapid 18mph/29kph and is taking the exact same path as Irma did on Tuesday directly into the north Lesser Antilles. This is horrible news for Montserrat, Barbuda, St. Maartens, Antiqua, the Virgins and Puerto Rico. The floodwaters of Irma haven’t subsided yet and possibly catastrophic for structures weakened by Irma.

I’m at 14°N Latitude and Jose is traveling WNW at 17°N. I feel reasonably sure that the Windwards have once again been spared. My local weather forecast shows winds from 2 to 9mph from now through next Friday. I think we’re going to be OK. My thoughts are with those poor people on those very small islands north of me, the idea that they are going to get hit again with Cat 4 winds is unbelievably tragic.

A Simplified version of the Saffir-Simpson Scale

^ Like the Richter scale for Hurricanes. So a Cat. 6 would be “off the charts cataclysmic and unprecedented destruction.” haha

^^Yeah. Like a 10 on the Richter Scale. It has never happened but theoretically it could. I’ve been doing some reading since this morning’s 8.4 in Mexico.

Richter Scale Infographic

I don’t think that hurricanes can surpass a cat 5. Something about centrifugal force. That’s why they hover back and forth between 4–5. They wobble, when they get so big, lose strength, then reorganize…

@MrGrimm888 That’s the theory, But I have seen discussions this week about whether to make a category 6, with Irma as a demonstrative example of winds and square mileage exceeding previously thought limits on cyclonic forces.

Irma just got upgraded again to Cat 5 as it hit Cuba.

Yeah. That storm is a buzz saw. Grab your ankles Florida….

Rain bands coming in now. Some wind. Unfortunately, our high tide is supposed to be about the same time as the storm surge. I’ve heard some claims of flooding. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time, but it doesn’t seem like it when I look at the track… I don’t know…

I do know that this is getting old. I’m about ready to move to the desert….

Well. My fucking house flooded again… Pretty sick, and tired of this…Going to my parent’s house further inland. Can’t look at this anymore…. Hope others did better than me.

@MrGrimm888 Truly sorry about that for you! Hoping for better days!

@MrGrimm888 I’m sorry to hear you’re getting pounded. Are you in Jacksonville? The next surge is expected around 11:10 PM.
Live surge data – Updated every 6 minutes.

^ He’s in the Carolinas.

Yeah. Charleston, SC. Damn storm surge got us…

I’m currently further inland, at my parents’ house. Driving wasn’t fun. They have power, but the storm is still going. I’m about to wash my dog, take a shower, and try to get to the bottom of a big bottle of whiskey…