2010 hurricane outlook

Storms will come when they come.
Have a plan and staples stocked.
Battery fan is a great investment.

We truly are a speck in the ocean though. Storms can take any course and make a turn at any moment. Good or bad.

Hugo and Marylin were very deadly and distructive direct hit storms. Huge Storms! People talk about them like it was yesterday and many are haunted by the images forever etched in their minds. Didn't I hear that before Hugo in 1989 that it had been 61 years since a direct hit in the VI?

It seems the aftermath of the storm is the biggest struggle. No electricity, no ice, no ph, cable, internet. Roofs missing, trees and poles down everywhere, hotter that ever, skeeters eatin you alive. And that's a good day!

Well Linda I like the way you see it. You and Ric bought a generator so,now that you have one,you will never need it. I like that idea. I'M bringing one with me and I hope I won't need it either. No need to be stressed over it though and I won't worry about it until the day comes. Just buy what I can and play the cards Mother Nature deals.

Speaking of Hurricanes,it is a heel of a time to open a Bar / Grill. WHO IS A GOOD INSURANCE COMPANY THAT WILL COVER THE CONTENTS OF THE BAR AND ACTUALLY PAY A POLICY ? I'M locking this on as soon as I arrive.

Put up the shutters--that will keep the storms away!

Especially the shutters you have to drag out the ladder to get up/closed!!

The Condo has the accordion type. Will that help keep them away. Ha,ha.

I do enjoy a good conspiracy theory, but today was the last day of school and this mom is beat, sorry, I'm not she.

Jennn, do your kids go to Country Day? We might know each other. I think they are the only ones that got out today.

Two of them are going to AZ Academy. They were also out today. This is starting to feel like a bit of a creepy interrogation guys, I'm not interested.

Hugo was the first intro for many/all of us to a REAL hurricane...like Andrew was in Fl, but there, you could get in your car and drive somewhere else, on stx you were here, with no where to go without an airplane trip.
first the folks on stx went through an entire night of storm unlike any they could imagine......and then started the next day....Imagine not a leaf or a blade of grass or anything green on the island at all...no birds, no plants that weren't stripped of foliage...and galvanized and debris everywhere you looked. No telephone poles....nails and glass and metal on the roads all over when the roads finally opened...the line for tires at H&H went on forever every day. Not many folks had generators, not like today....No telephones, so no way to communicate with folks on island....where Case Place is now was a rest. called Crab & Oyster House, and they were open, as were a few others....folks would go there for some food (no choice to speak of whatever it was) drinks and conversation, and would leave messages for other folks, trying to contact folks or get things done...and then had to be home before curfew, which I think was 6PM....the bugs, and the STINK...everything was rotting and we called it the stx smell...you could pick something up or touch something a year later and get "the smell"...Everything was done with cash..no credit cards, no one would take a check because the banks couldn't tell who had money deposited...No laundry, bulk (500-100 gallons?) water deliveries roadside into large plastic tanks called water buffalos that were set up in neighborhoods so folks could go with jugs and pots and get water to cook and drink...no Woolworth's, Plaza was somewhat open because they sat on the roof with automatic weapons to stop the looting....I remember some folks were living in little camping tents in front of their houses on the road from bassin triangle down to watergut--months after the storm. You had sight lines that never existed before, because all the roadside bush was gone....big boats up past Caravelle Hotel in the street...folks walking around with guns in holsters on their hips...soldiers with machine guns at the airport and walking the streets in town...cell phones ( insurance adjusters had them) came in two parts, the phone part and a box that held the battery, the size of an attache case...and the service was through the BVI. Electric crews from Texas and Alabama and places..they'd start up their trucks etc at 6 or so in the AM, and it sounded like the cowboy movies of old, with the roundups...the accents and the yells back and forth, etc, but it was such a good sound because you knew they were headed out to set new poles and string wire and work like crazy all day long, 6 days a week...The hospital was in tents like on MASH...and eventually they got trailers in the parking lot...sometime in the first year after the storm...
Any wonder that when the next big storm was forcast in 95 (called Luis I think) folks on stx freaked? People were frantic, running to buy plywood, doing whatever......I was on the last flight that left SJU the night before that storm, and could have sold my ticket for lots of money..folks there were crazy too. That storm did not hit stx, but about 2 weeks later marilyn did....and it started all over again....

Preparing and worrying are two different things.

I first arrived on St Croix a few months after hurricane HUGO. As Beachy said, the island was stripped BARE, if you didn't see it it is hard to describe. The coast view both north and south was open and no longer blocked by trees, brush or anything. How things look today is very very different than the St Croix I first saw.

No amount of preparation made the days after Hugo much better.

However, do what you need to do, Make sure you have a food and water supply. If you can afford it, get a generator. But I guarantee you, that if another hurricane like Hugo hits no amount of preparation will be enough. The houses here are the best built in the Caribbean, but you will probably lose your roof.

Now the good news...As always, it is unlikely that it will happen again in our lifetime. A smaller hurricane like Omar is just a blip compared to Hugo.

chockman ask the manger when you get there if there is room in containers to park the scooter if storm comes there are two of them in back of parking lot

Cool. Thanks Jerry. I never looked for containers in Feb. Everything arrived here the other day . Did my package show up .

Most of the long range forecasts agree that conditions will become even more favorable as the season progresses.

And for the hurricane newbies: favorable = bad! "Favorable" is short for "favorable for development," but it is often shortened to "favorable."

If it gets really favorable this year, maybe they'll start using "excellent" or "awesome" instead. Wouldn't that cheer us all up?!

I just love semantics. It's a great word for educated guess. I'VE never seen the place right after a hurricane but I'll heed the advice of those who have. I heard that prior to Hugo when you drove through Salt River,you used to drive under a canopy of trees that used to completely cover the road.

Moved to the FL Keys awhile back. We had 5 canes in as many months. Rode them all out. The next year, we decided to go vacation up in N. FL while the cane drove through the Keys. At the last minute it turned. Yep, you guessed it. We had to ride it out in a bummed hotel room and had trouble getting gas to get back home. No problems even happenned in the Keys. Lesson learned -- prepare the best you can & party the best you can.

Heh heh, that's funny Bob! Yup, favorable = favorable for development = bad.

Rob Lightbown with Crown Weather stated that environmental conditions in the Eastern Atlantic right now are similar to what we normally see in late July or early August.. Everyone seems to be in agreement. Environmental conditions this year will be (as Bob suggested) AWESOME for the development of big storms.

Dr. Klotzbach and Dr. Gray of Colorado State University released their updated hurricane season forecast yesterday. They have increased their numbers to 18 named storms, 10 hurricanes and 5 major hurricanes.

http://tropical.atmos.colostate.edu/forecasts/2010/june2010/jun2010.pdf

"We anticipate a well above-average probability of United States and Caribbean major hurricane landfall."

Tuesday, Florida State University issued their seasonal forecast. Their model is forecasting 17 named storms with 10 of those storms becoming hurricanes.

http://www.physorg.com/news194620115.html

“It looks like it will be a very busy season..."

A couple of weeks ago a forum member on STX PMed me and said that s/he thinks Jennn is Betty, so I started watching Jenn's posts and have come to think the STX forum member may be right. And even if Jenn isn't Betty, she seems to share many of Betty's perspectives.

Does it really matter? This is a bulletin board one can post anonymous or by real name.

Jenn or Betty both are welcome to post

fyi this is my only posting ID

Thanks for sharing, beachy. You express yourself exceptionally well. I felt as though I was almost there for a moment.

2 questions, if I may....

What happens to the grass? "Imagine not a leaf or a blade of grass or anything green on the island at all..." Does the salt spray kill it? Do the winds scour the soil bare?

Are there any collections of photos taken on STX or STT after the major hurricanes?

A couple of weeks ago a forum member on STX PMed me and said that s/he thinks Jennn is Betty, so I started watching Jenn's posts and have come to think the STX forum member may be right. And even if Jenn isn't Betty, she seems to share many of Betty's perspectives.

Does it really matter? This is a bulletin board one can post anonymous or by real name.

Jenn or Betty both are welcome to post

fyi this is my only posting ID

I was answering a question terry asked me.

Alrighty then!

Terry, it doesn't matter if Jenn posts or Betty posts. Both are welcome to post their views.

Capice?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LmgDCWC6Q8

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwEUnaqUAGY

Alrighty then!

Terry, it doesn't matter if Jenn posts or Betty posts. Both are welcome to post their views.

Capice?

I was not saying anything negative. I do miss Betty's posts, I was sorry to see her go!

Aussie,
We hope that we never have a storm like Hugo again..Typical storms thankfully do not approach the severity of Hugo....and we prepare alot for the storms now, having learned new tricks in every storm that's struck since then...compare notes with friends, etc....we don't party, nor do I know anyone who does, because by the time the storm starts we're beat from running around, and nervous besides...I've been through H's in the states before and since, as well as on stx, but there is a much higher level of stress for me if I'm on stx...
We've got lots of pics taken about 2 weeks after Hugo, but they are 'real' pics, not digital or whatever. We actually were not on island for Hugo, we had tickets for the day after the storm, but could not fly back till the first commercial flights 10 days later...We have a pic of what was our cottage...it lost a window shutter (the plastic decorative stateside type) off the front of the house, but otherwise it looks fine from the street. If you went in the front door though, there was no back to the house. The roof left, (is still in the water between CV and Buck Island) along with the whole back/side walls of house, with windows set in poured concrete.... We had a brand new fancy condo that we had closed on 2 weeks earlier, and it was gone... our pics show the blades from the Hunter ceiling fans stuck in the cement walls of the condo after they spun so fast they took off...likely after the sliders and windows and part of roof left...another condo we had was pretty badly damaged, but sort of had a roof, and still had windows, so it was cleaned up and rented at a high rent within 2 weeks after the storm..no power, water just a few hours a day with a generator, ....but the plastic tarps strung below the ceiling from wall to wall mostly caught the water that came in whenever it rained...so it was a prime rental....it was still leaking and still rented till demo a year after the storm...by then the mold had taken over the walls inside...it's a wonder that no one was electrocuted with the water that would fill the floor whenever it rained

There were a good number of news reports with pictures in stateside newspapers/internet, but especially in the VI papers in 2009, at the 20th anniversary of Hugo...If you google ...hurricane hugo pictures st croix...you get some interesting sites, including pics at one at www.photolib.noaa.gov/brs/nwind10.htm Look at photos #480 and 481. 480 is a view of the Sugar Beach office building/tennis courts in the bottom left of photo. To the left of SB is Club St Croix...the homes above are those between condo row and the Northside road, which does not actually appear in this picture...which is indicated to have been taken in late September, likely a week-10 days after the storm... there is also a thread on this board written around that 20th anny time...

A first-party report that appeared on wunderland.com....." As Hurricane Hugo approached the U.S. Virgin Islands in the early morning hours of September 18, 1989, the storm slowed down to 10 mph. The slower speed allowed Hugo to punish the island of St. Croix with the worst beating of any location along the hurricane's destructive path. At 2am local time on September 18, 1989, Hurricane Hugo's eyewall struck St. Croix, bringing incredibly ferocious Category 4 winds, sustained at 140 mph. The hurricane's gusts were remarkably violent, and many residents witnessed tornado-like vorticies barreling across the island as the hurricane raged about them. A storm surge of 2 - 3 feet, topped by battering waves 20 - 23 feet high, assaulted the coast, adding to the destruction. Wunderground member Mike Steers wrote me to describe his experience on St. Croix: "Hugo was incredible. Many vortexes came in that night. The roar and intensity of the winds that night were incredible. When the eyewall came over, we were forced to take refuge in the bathroom as the rest of the house came apart. The pressure was so low outside the house that all of the water was sucked out of the toilet and an air draft was created through the toilet. Just when I thought it was as bad as it would get, the intensity of it all dialed up even higher. Dozens and dozens of times, my ears would violently pop due to rapid pressure changes. The next morning, of course, the devastation was unbelievable. In my front yard was a 18-foot boat with an outboard on it, that had been picked up from a marina two miles away. I had lost my house, and job, the Seaplane company I was a pilot for. After a couple months, I had to leave everything behind. In some respects, after 20 years, there an many aspects of the society that have yet to recover". Two people were killed on St. Croix, 80 injured, and 90% of the buildings were damaged or destroyed. Damage estimates for St. Croix were astronomical, over $1 billion, and the island's entire infrastructure was virtually wiped out. Six weeks after the hurricane, only 25% of the public roads had been cleared, and only 25% of the island had power.'
One of the most interesting stories I read last year was at
www.roadjunky.com/article/2196/surviving-hurricane-hugo-aboard-a-yacht-in-the-caribbean
written by someone who was actually on a boat in the lagoon/hurricane hole near the Hovensa refinery...being in a real big hurricane is scary enough in a house, I can't imagine being in a boat. But no one expected the intensity of that storm.
Luckily most structures now in the VI are engineered to withstand a pretty severe storm, if not a Hugo-type...Properly closed in, and with everything outside brought in etc, the structure itself is likely to do pretty well...so then it becomes the inconvenience for the weeks after the storm...we've gone two or three weeks before WAPA is back on, and cable...that's a joke!
It's been our experience lately that a significant storm means a couple days of warning before, a curfew perhaps the day/night before, and the day after, with most everything closed, then folks start to go back to work, and spend their time cleaning up at home and/or work...and enduring the real inconveniences it brings..luckily the storms have not been as bad as they could be, but you never know....better to be over-prepared than under...

Beachy that is one hell of a recount of Hugo. I have seen some of the stories you mentioned. I have one question for you,well maybe a couple. Who did you have for insurance ? Did they cover you well ? Did they pay as they should have ? I'M currently looking for a reliable company for Commercial property insurance.

Quite a few very reputable insurance companies here failed after Hugo -- re-insurance and cash reserves issues - and being unprepared and surprised by a storm with the destructiveness of Hugo.
No severe hurricanes here since 1926 until 1989 and the memories dimmed.