Milton rapidly intensified to a Category 5 hurricane late Monday morning.
Within hours, Milton strengthened to a Category 2, then a Category 3, then a Category 4 and finally a Category 5.
Milton now ranks as the third-greatest 24-hour wind speed intensification for a hurricane in the Atlantic Basin. (Records are based on data since the satellite era began in the 1960s.)
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At least the insurance companies will only have to rebuild some houses once after 2 hurricanes
If your policy covers wind they claim the damage is from water. If your policy covers water, they claim the damage is from wind. If your policy covers both, they claim a hurricane is exempt as an act of god.
Which, to be fair, is really about all they can do. You CANNOT stop a hurricane from obliterating a house. There is NOTHING the average American can do about it except leave and hope it survives.
Then its dishonest to accept money for your fake business.
they are not real businesses in the insurance sense. its all federal money for flood insurance. they’re just servicers kinda like mortgage originators.
That sounds like capitalistic socialism to me. I dont even understand the notion of what you said there.
this goes into it a bit and is a good listen in general. https://overcast.fm/+AAyIOzvst0E
I want to bitch about insurance companies but insurance is for something that is unavoidable.
All this shit is becoming more and more avoidable.
If people don’t have the common sense to not build houses in places that are guaranteed to be destroyed by a natural disaster sooner than later, then I shouldn’t have to subsidize their rebuilding costs through my insurance premiums.
That’s what the people in the North Carolina mountains thought.
That seems like a perfectly reasonable place to build that’s not obviously at threat from hurricanes. But sometimes shit happens that couldn’t be easily foreseen, and THAT’S what insurance is for.
My point, however, is that insurance is NOT to make other policy holders foot the expense of someone repeatedly repairing/rebuilding after completely foreseeable/inevitable events.
To anyone that insists on having a house right on the beach on the Gulf Coast, I say, “Insure thy self.”
Yeah, used to be that insurance costs were almost directly skewed based on risk. But then people were upset that it costed so much to insure some places(the ones that should be prohibitively expensive to insure). And then slowly over time they baked in little increases in price everywhere else to subsidise huge price cuts in those areas to out-compete the companies that put the onus entirely on the people taking risks. Eventually, as it became more and more widespread to do that, it became financially more viable to spread it out rather than have drastically more expensive areas. And now we all have to partially cover people who are taking way more risk than we would.
That’s communism in a nut shell, Republicans should be up in arms over it
Forms of communism that mean they are making more money are actually ok by them. They just have to find a different name to call it so they don’t have to say that icky word that gives them feelings.
That or build something that can stand up to being hit. Tall order, but the inner armchair engineer in me thinks it’s like, totally possible.
I think you forget, building it stronger once would cost 50% more upfront. Better to build it twice, or three times at only 100% cost each time. That way you can be the lowest bidder every time.
Many insurance companies won’t even insure homes in much of Florida.
And the rest are probably planning to.
What insurance companies? They all backed out of Florida years ago. Now it’s state funded home insurance footing the bill.
I read a thing recently that insurance companies are getting increasingly skittish all over the country, even places that wouldn’t traditionally be considered risky, because yay, climate change.
The interesting thing about it was that insurance companies’ insurance is increasingly the thing that’s causing issues, because it’s getting harder for the risk to be spread out. That is to say that insurance companies financially rely on areas with low rates of natural disasters because they end up being a net positive due to insurance premiums and no need for payout. Fewer of these “safe” areas mean the insurance companies struggle to stay solvent and have to rely on their own insurance policies to have their back, but those meta-insurance companies have apparently been historically loud about climate change — probably because besides the government, they’re the ones who have to pony up
Here in Missouri, home owners insurance is starting to lose hail damage from coverage. Damn near 90% of the houses around my area have now replaced their roofs, and have the roofing signage out front. It’s almost a running joke now: guessing which house will be next to get one, and counting the company’s signs to see who’s making a killing.
No problem. The 0ld coots in Florida that vote won’t be around when the bill comes due.
Insurance companies don’t build shit. They just collect money from people, and sometimes give some of it back.
Begrudgingly cover*
unless they can find a way to screw you over for profit, then they absolutely will no matter how ridiculous the “reasoning”*
I believe it was Katrina where the insurance said it was wind damage when you only had flood insurance, but if you’re neighbor only had wind coverage they’d tell them it was water damage.
Right storm. Wrong details.
They (insurance companies) were claiming it as flood/surge damage, even if wind ripped off your roof to let the water inside. Wind was covered, water wasn’t. Companies were sued for trying to blanket deny an area based on one generic engineering report, or denying coverage if flood waters came through after wind destroyed a place. Insurance com0anies don’t typically offer flood insurance to a lot of places and if homeowners want it, they have to buy it through the federal government.
They’re actually required to give 85% of everything back, so they give back most of it. It seems like Florida is becoming too much of a hassle to insure, though. Some companies have pulled out of florida.
Does that 85% include their costs or is that the full amount returned to policy holders?
Full amount that is legally required to pay back out in insurer coverage every year. The other 15% covers pay roll, rent, buildings, bonus’, overhead, etc. Literally everything else. Same deal for medical insurance.
Everyone in FL should have pulled out.
This joke works on multiple levels and I’m happy about that.
Holy shit a triple entendre!
Longer article if you want more info: https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-milton-helene-florida-557c5c512135e0a8661b298e45e17c92
Within hours, Milton strengthened to a Category 2, then a Category 3, then a Category 4 and finally a Category 5.
Someone had a word quota to fill.
Probably submitted the article with 1.1 line spacing and 13 point font
Florida gonna look like Fallout4 post Hurricane Milton and Hurricane season ain’t even over…
Currently in my house in Florida, where I am looks to be not on the direct path but not completely free. Hurricanes can move a lot, especially when they get on land and staet losing speed.
Once we evacuated 5 hours in a car with all our animals (at the time 2 big sweaty dogs) in a car that wasnt even the size of a minivan. We packed everything we needed just in case. Once we got inside the hotel we booked we took a ~2 hour nap and upon checking the storm again it had moved to come right to where the hotel is. We then had to drive 5 hours BACK home where we began.
Anyhoo, wish us luck! I don’t wanna evacuate with 4 cats and a large dog haha
UPDATE: 5:30 10/8
I got 5+ ‘amber alerts’ today. They just wouldn’t stop haha
My first thought was, “5 Amber alerts amd a hurricane… good god what’s going on in Florida?!”
You had me even more worried there for a second.
I wish you luck trifling toad🤞 Escaping a situation with just people is difficult, with additional animals makes it so much more stressful. Especially cats since they have to be put in a crate and need a litter box etc.
Good luck to you and your family. I don’t know anyone in Florida, so I will be thinking of you as a proxy for all the people I am concerned for in the potential path of this hurricane.
You would think religious people would say this is a sign. They probably do but apply it in the wrong direction.
It turns out it is a sign of Dems having weather control devices.
Of all the gay lasers, the purple ones and those of higher frequency like UV and EUV have the most photonic power.
just makes them delve into conspiracy thinking even more
It’s only a sign when it hits blue states. In red states it’s HAARP or the Jewish space lasers.
Or it was a test and anyone who didn’t survive wasn’t faithful enough.
Yeah, they think it’s a sign that “too many gays” are now in Florida, and God has to punish the sodomites.
Trying to get Florida Republicans to do any amount of introspection would be like trying to teach an ant to play basketball.
In the 2000’s, religious people would blame hurricanes on things like gay marriage.
And the radio waves were just full of their bloviating
We’re supposed to go to Tampa this weekend for a tattoo. In the grand scheme of things I know, we’ve got very little to worry about, but I am wondering if we should just cancel now, or if there’s a chance of Tampa being back online by Friday.
If it’s only for a tattoo, maybe post pone it? Are you driving there? Only asking cuz plane ticket cancellation vs driving is different cost wise if you can’t get a refund. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to call the place and ask them what they think is appropriate.
We have flights and hotel booked. It’s my husband’s appointment, I’m just there to show him memes and distract him. He’s going to ask the guy today.
Did everything turn out okay?
Aww thanks for checking in! We ended up cancelling last minute and booking a random flight in the opposite direction, to Omaha NE. We’d never been and it seemed like a good time. I ended up getting a duck butt tattoo, and we rescheduled his. His appt just happened and he was good all 5 hours of it!
We also explored the coast a little and got to see the devastation first hand, houses completely wrecked, timber everywhere, whole neighborhoods ruined. Got some cool shark teeth tho!
I’m glad to hear it all worked out Lenny! (Duck butt tattoo as in a duck’s butt?) You should turn the shark teeth into jewellery of some sort haha
Yep, imagine a duck digging in a pond with its butt in the air… that. Hahah.
Probably not.
I guess their god doesn’t like florida. I wonder why?
On a more serious note I really hope all the decent people of florida the best of luck. To the rest I hope you only get thoughts and prayers.
Thanks…I’m trying to make the place suck less
confusing username but good luck!
In this world of self appointed warriors for good who seem to think the goal is to control others. Evil is the new good.
I wonder why?
Anytime Americans are asked which state would you get rid of, Florida is the top answer.
Maybe their god is starting to listen.
/s
Floridas gonna be the next Atlantis, a mysterious land that vanished under the ocean from which tales came of strange people comitting outragous deeds. Future historians will see the tales of the mighty ‘Florida Men’ and assume it was some kind of myth.
More like Doggerland a place having verifiably existed, and which would hold answers to what man’s primitive ancestors were doing, but which we don’t really go to look at, because studying shit that’s underwater is expensive and we’re not that interested.
Time to break out the Sharpie and fix this, Donald!
Did Helene not eradicate all the idiots?
How are there more?
Graghhhhhh.
Ohh shit.
So how much overlap is there with the previous Helene path?
A lot of overlap from the flooding, more wind from Milton. I know a few people who have had to gut their houses already from Helene and expect it to flood again this week.
The panhandle is getting a lot of rain, but there is a lot of overlap with Ian’s path… namely our house :/
For direct path on landfall, probably none unless it turns northwards. But the west coast of florida just ate the rain, storm surge and wind from Helene and will now get the full brunt of Milton.
Little, this is going to hit Florida directly (moving east from the gulf) and then go into the Atlantic. It won’t make it into the rest of the country, fortunately.
Unless it does one of those classic 180s where it swings back around and hits the atlantic
Minimal. Helene went north, and really only hit the pan handle area, Milton is going East and is going to pass through the middle of Florida.
Even though it was like 100 miles off shore, the Tampa Bay area had an 8 foot storm surge with Helene that killed 12 people and ruined tens of thousands of homes and businesses. There are piles of debris everywhere along the coast that are going to become projectiles in hurricane force winds of they can’t be picked up in time. Almost the entire western coast of Florida saw significant impact from Helene
That’s still probably better than if there was debris from a direct hit.
Well yes, two direct hits would be worse. Was just saying Helene had a pretty severe impact on the areas that are going to be hit directly this time
One of the things I’m wondering about is whether Helene chopped up the water and caused some overturning/cooling that may lower surface temps.
And if it did (or did so to a meaningful degree), is that helping to temper Milton before it makes landfall?
And I guess I’m commenting here because you seemed so confident. (Maybe you’re just making it up as you go along, too. Who knows?!)
That’s probably why everyone is super split on the landfall category of the hurricane.
That should play an impact and overcast and heavy rain should make for a less welcoming Florida.
However we have seen that shallower waters by the coast have been very very hot lately and do a lot to bump up hurricanes as they near the shallows and it could intensify the storm again as it nears land.
Tampa doesn’t get hit directly by storms and they don’t generally form to category 5 hurricanes in about 12 hours in the gulf of Mexico so there is a lot of new science and prediction work to be done here so it’s a lot of guessing till it does.
At least mid Florida is mostly higher elevation for dealing with the storm surge. The winds will be brutal.
What. The. Fuck.
I’m watching the live stream from WFLA, which is a St. Petersburg station. He’s a photo of a bridge leaving the area right now (just after noon on Tuesday Florida time.)
Either most people with cars have evacuated or there are a lot of people who may learn the last lesson of their lives. I hope the former.
Also, the eye apparently will pass right over Cape Canaveral.
They’ve been evacuating all day, i was watching streams with roads bumper to bumper at 8am today
This graphic from The Weather Channel is terrifying.
Most tsunamis are less than 10 feet high
https://www.weather.gov/safety/tsunami-about
Cities can’t be protected from this long-term.
Excuse me, is that feet???
I had to do a double take on that.
deleted by creator
Terrifyingly, yes it is.
Holy fuck people. It says right in the image that it’s in meters.
So not only lemmings can’t read, a comment asking for info staring you in the face has 55 upvotes… and the wrong answer has 38.
snekerpimp was responding to FlyingSquid, not baldingpudenda.
Well, that’s egg on my face. Thanks for the correction.
If it makes you feel better, it seems like you’re not the only one who missed the thread indent 🤷♂️
Indents are hard to do well. Maybe impossible? Should be effortless to read but seems to never happen. Maybe just one of those things.
Could be worse… at least it’s not in Meters.
Yet.
It is in meters and since that an elevation map of Florida, that is the better scenario.
Basically all the areas in purple and dark blue are low enough for the storm surge to flood them. If it was feet, then the blue-green will probably be underwater as well.
The question about ft came right below the elevation map, but it was a top-level comment on the OP and not a sub-comment about the elevation map.
Seems you were confused about this order of comments too but unfortunately you’ve taken downvotes for it.
SWEET! Surfs up!
To soon?
No. There’s always a bunch of surfers that go out for hurricane waves. I assume some have a death wish.
Ok, Bodie.
You’re surfing all the way to sooner island from Florida‽
Where is sooner island?
Oklahoma, duh.
Just never heard of it called sooner island
before later island
Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven wrote a book called Lucifer’s Hammer about a comet hitting the Earth. There’s a part where all the surfers in the ocean off of L.A. know they’re going to die, so they decide to ride the tsunami and get taken out one by one as they get smashed into buildings.
That would make for a great scene in a disaster movie.
Honestly, the whole book would make a great miniseries. Probably too much for just one movie.
Too bad Larry Niven is and Jerry Pournelle was such right-wing assholes, because their published some great stuff.
One pancake to go!
I think I heard about the book you were talking about
Unfortunately, at least from videos I’ve seen of the Indian Ocean tsunami and the Fukushima tsunami, tsunamis don’t really “break” like good surfing waves and instead seem to act more like a large swell that keeps going instead of ebbing.
(A mega-tsunami from a comet impact might be so large it would act differently, though.)
I’ll be honest, it’s one of the least believable parts of a book which overall reads as quite plausible, but it’s a fun chapter. Neither of the authors are/were scientists, so they were bound to get some things wrong. It was also written almost 50 years ago, so I’m guessing the science they did work with has been supplanted in a lot of ways since then.
Some “Day After Tomorrow” kinda shit right there
The key says elevation is in meters, so it’s about 3 times less terrifying.
/s
Florida’s elevation
That image is in meters, so it’s bad, but not quite as bad at first glance.
That’s pretty bad… How is it so flat??
So hurricanes can pass across without losing too much energy.
It is all in the design.
I wasnt trying to deceive, but everything in pink and blue is gonna get fucked.
I’m surprised DeSantis hasn’t required that the storm surge be listed in meters to make it appear smaller and less of an issue.
Use decameters to make the number smaller and less people will understand or care.
Meters are communist. He’s dumb enough to require it be listed in leagues.
Headed straight for L Ron Hubbard.
He’s coming for his red stapler. You stole it. Now it is time for revenge.
Milton could put strychnine in the guacamole.
Oh shit, those numbers are feet, not inches. That took me a moment. Fuuuuuck.
For those across the pond, 3658mm of rain (12’)
Really sets it in seeing it in mm
Edit: See below comment, I completely misinterpreted the storm surge meaning
No that is storm surge.
So it’s the hurricane pushes that much water onto the shore through force and can get that high of water above sea level.So more akin to a slow tsunami where a hurricane pushes up to 3.6M of water up onto the land then it rains more on top of that. Storm surge is mostly the reason for the houses on pillars too.
I see, thanks for the clarification and bonus tidbit on that!
If only we could have foreseen this somehow
Agreed. Maybe we can measure the temperature globally and compare it to past readings. Nevermind, that would be crazy.
That sounds like socialism!
Good thing they removed climate change from being a thing discussed in the legislature. That should fix things.
Where’s the magic sharpie when you need it?
Anyone got a nuke? I have an idea.
I guess nuking Florida before the hurricane gets there would reduce the damage inflicted by the hurricane.
They forgot to make a law against it!
\s
SCOTUS should declare climate change unconstitutional.
They are manipulating the weather! It would be clear as day if there wouldn’t be one hurricane after another.
