I'm now watching the eye of Irma about to cross directly over our house. Fortunately we're not home, we took off early Saturday morning and we're now in Brunswick GA. A direct hit on your house sounds like a terrible thing but in this case we seem to have gotten lucky, the worst part of the eye wall is on the east side and that will pass to our east. The north-south center of the eye wall looks to be much less intense.
Other good things happening to us from this monster storm are;
1) The intensity of Irma was at Cat4 a few hours ago and is now at Cat2. Big difference in structural damage potential. Big difference in storm surge potential.
2) Irma is moving much faster now. At one point it was going 6 mph and it is now moving at 14 mph. Big difference in storm surge potential since there will be less time available to push the water inland.
3) The wind hitting our house started out coming from the east. After the eye passes it will switch around and will be blowing from the west. Our house has large glass surfaces facing south and a ready source of debris the wind can get a hold of. But we should not see any wind from the southerly direction due to being center punched by the eye.
I have no real idea what we'll find when we return home. We could have structural damage but hurricane Charley had similar strength at our location and we did very well. The big problem and the real unknown for us is the storm surge. We're about 1/4 mile from the river but the storm surge can/will travel up river and breach its banks. The fact that we're located more than ten miles from Gulf only means there will be a delay in the water's arrival. If we get ten feet of surge up river we're looking at major damage. Five feet would be less serious but we might still see water in the house. Three to four feet surge and I think we'll be OK.
Fingers firmly crossed.......
Other good things happening to us from this monster storm are;
1) The intensity of Irma was at Cat4 a few hours ago and is now at Cat2. Big difference in structural damage potential. Big difference in storm surge potential.
2) Irma is moving much faster now. At one point it was going 6 mph and it is now moving at 14 mph. Big difference in storm surge potential since there will be less time available to push the water inland.
3) The wind hitting our house started out coming from the east. After the eye passes it will switch around and will be blowing from the west. Our house has large glass surfaces facing south and a ready source of debris the wind can get a hold of. But we should not see any wind from the southerly direction due to being center punched by the eye.
I have no real idea what we'll find when we return home. We could have structural damage but hurricane Charley had similar strength at our location and we did very well. The big problem and the real unknown for us is the storm surge. We're about 1/4 mile from the river but the storm surge can/will travel up river and breach its banks. The fact that we're located more than ten miles from Gulf only means there will be a delay in the water's arrival. If we get ten feet of surge up river we're looking at major damage. Five feet would be less serious but we might still see water in the house. Three to four feet surge and I think we'll be OK.
Fingers firmly crossed.......
