170904 Thoughts on Irma

This morning was beautiful

There was not a hint of what's out there coming our way.

At the moment Irma is a Category 5 hurricane. The current predictions are that she will hit the northeast corner of the island with hurricane force winds but will then continue on to the northwest. The wind strength diminishes as you move farther away from the eye. By the time she passes our corner of the island the eye should be far enough away that we will "only" get tropical storm-strength winds. (Update: since I wrote that, the latest forecast has Irma staying much closer to the island, 30 nautical miles instead of 100 nautical miles. Irma has also increased to 185 mph sustained winds.)

Our biggest short-term, immediate fear is not wind but water. The forecast for our end of this island is for about 6 inches of rain. That's quite a bit but not disastrous. But that rain comes with kind of a "perfect storm" of sea conditions. The predictions are for a 4-6' storm surge. That means the "base" level of the ocean will be 4' to 6' higher than normal. Add to that tomorrow night is the full moon which means higher than normal tides. On top of that add 20'-plus storm-driven waves. All of that will be driving right into the mouth of the little river, effectively damming it up. All the rain water from up above has no where to go.

Longer term of course is the fear about the fragility of the island's electric and water infrastructure. We could be without electric or water for days, maybe weeks. Like most people, we stock-piled water. We also have two 600-gallon cisterns filled with captured rainwater.  Loss of electric is an inconvenience. Ola Lola's is closed for the rest of September anyway for our yearly "down time", so keeping beer and burgers cold is not the issue it would be if we were open.

We've taken the precautions we can. We put plywood over our few glass windows. We have everything that water can damage up off the floors. We put "hurricane straps" Tomorrow when we do the final storm close-up we will sandbag around the bar to minimize any water damage.

All those preparations aside, we have decided to spend the night in a friend's house up on top of the cliff. It is a concrete house on the former air force base so it was built to withstand a war. Not only does that put us up out of the flood zone, we will be right around the corner from our friends Carole and Rolf. Rolf has dementia. No one knows how he might react to the storm. We will be close in the event Carole needs a hand. In truth, that was the deciding factor for me to move up the mountain. And, as the storm forecasts worsen, that seems like a good plan.

When - when, not if - we lose electricity we will of course lose access to the Internet, social media and all that. It is likely we will lose cell phone signal at least for a while. We are so used to instant communication that "old school" seems hard. Hang in there. We will make contact whenever we can.

'Til then do like the horse do and keep your back to the wind. See ya on the flip side!