So, here we go again…
Some geography …
Pinellas County FL, which contains St Petersburg and its suburbs (where I live), projects out in a peninsula with a narrow neck, with the Gulf of Mexico on one side and Tampa Bay on the other:
The highest point on the peninsula is around 30-35 feet above sea level, near the center. Like all touristy beach areas, the big rich fancy mansions and the tourist hotels are located along the water and on the barrier islands that run along the coast, while the poors live in the interior. Most of the wealthy tourist areas are just a couple feet above sea level.
It’s not easy for hurricanes to hit us directly, and it only happens rarely. The hurricanes that form in the Caribbean have to travel north around the Keys and then they swing out into the Gulf of Mexico. To hit us in Tampa Bay, they’d have to make a pretty abrupt hard right turn, and that is unusual. It would also be a very bad thing for us, since as it approached us the hurri would push an immense volume of seawater into the narrow inlet of Tampa Bay. The Bay is only 6 or 7 feet deep for most of its area, so there would be nowhere for all that water to go, and it would inevitably get pushed up onto the surrounding low-lying land areas, and cause massive an extensive flooding. It’s the nightmare scenario. Fortunately for us, most times the hurricanes travel up the Gulf and hit Mississippi, Alabama or the Florida Panhandle. Tampa Bay just gets swept by the eastern edge of the storm as it passes out in the Gulf.
This storm though has formed in the western Gulf and is moving east towards us, which is very unusual
I’m in one of the local high schools that has been converted to a shelter, and have laid out my sleeping bag on my spot of floor space. The line to get in was halfway around the block, and one of the worker bees told me they thought they can fit somewhere between 7 and 8 thousand people. The buses are running for free for as long as they can to take people to shelters, and there are shelters open all over the city, with plans to open more as needed. I went to the first shelter that opened, since I am expecting more people will crowd in as things get worse. I have wifi here but the school server blocks Yahoo so I cannot email anyone.
There are now a bit less than 2,000 people in this shelter: we are all at breakfast now in the school cafeteria.
Word we are getting as of Wednesday morning is that the hurricane has shifted course enough so it probably will not hit Tampa Bay directly but will make landfall further south, towards Sarasota/Bradenton. That’s good news for us, as it means the storm surge will be lower than was feared. The hurri is also weakening and is now a Cat 4, and there’s a decent chance it will drop to a Cat 3 before it reaches us. The winds will still be very high, though. We’re still gonna get lots of damage. Landfall is expected at around 2am tonight.
I’ll check in again later. Right now all we can do is wait. I’ll check in here from time to time.