bad feeling on upcoming hurricane season.

bob lico · Post by **bob lico** » Apr 9th, '08, 21:56

every year the winters here on the south shore of long island are becoming milder and milder.we had about 3" of snow once and that was gone in two days.at the turn of the century south sayville was the place to go for iceboating.32miles long and 4miles wide ice boats line the bay .the last time the bay froze thick was 1977 winter.the lakes would freeze and the youth would play hockey,at night the fire dept used there light truck and the adults would ice skate and hard hitting hockey.that is totally gone the lakes don`t freeze and my koi pond doesn`t freeze over. this year at the marina we put out 40 "ice eaters" at the two locations.prevents the poles from lifting due to the ice.well that was all in vain and now bait fish this is ridiculous water temp is near 50degrees at the dock and the canyon has 65degree water eddies.i am no weather expert but in my short time on earth i can`t believe the dramatic change.if a hurricane tracks to the north we are going to relive the hurricane of 1938 with total destruction to south shore of long island.it`s coming i tell you!!!!

Bruce · Post by **Bruce** » Apr 9th, '08, 22:29

Bob,
I'm sure its comming one day also. But when, who knows. Certainly it makes sense that the warming trends will lead to more hurricanes but those trends have been comming for a decade and only 04 and 05 really produced major events.

If you follow the logic, 06 and 07 should have been bad years also but weren't.

The earth works in cycles and if you wait long enough, things will repeat.

White Bear · Post by **White Bear** » Apr 10th, '08, 06:54

Bob: Eventually those who predict another '1938' for the South Shore and East End of Long Island will be proven 100% correct. Will this be the year - who knows? On one side is a vastly improved forecasting system that will provide us with some fair warning of an upcoming event, but that is more than overbalanced by that same system having cried "wolf" several times in the past 20 years to the point where legitimate warnings are ignored by those most in danger. The majority of the residents on Long Island have no first hand knowledge of a hurricane's power and are proceding in ignorance. As one deeply involved in the Suffolk County emergency services system, let me state that our best and most efficient responses will be woefully inadequate in the face of a major assault by mother nature. The fantastic growth in population and the erection of structures in places they never should have been built are a sure prelude to a disaster on a scale not yet seen in this Country. This discussion is closely akin to the tired example of watching a train/auto wreck in slow motion and not being able to do anything about it. Long Island is in for an extremely tough time - we just don't know when.

Brewster Minton · Post by **Brewster Minton** » Apr 10th, '08, 07:05

The sky is falling, The sky is falling!!!!

Eddy G · Post by **Eddy G** » Apr 10th, '08, 08:31

I saw on the news last week that some scientist believe that the warmer "climate" we are experiencing actually generates more sheer that may help to keep larger hurricanes from developing.

Every day a new angle.

Eddy G.

Mikey · Post by **Mikey** » Apr 10th, '08, 09:01

Hey, Chicken Little, the best scientific minds on the planet have been consistently wrong, let's hope you are too.

tds8268 · Post by **tds8268** » Apr 10th, '08, 13:35

Why spend time to worry about something we have very little knowledge about and absolutely no control over. These hurricane predictions are just like the marine forcasts and we all know how accurate they are.

Dan

In Memory Walter K · Post by **In Memory Walter K** » Apr 10th, '08, 17:00

The most valid thing said on this thread is that the majority of Long Island's population couldn't survive without electricity and would be at each other's throats within 24 hours. About 15 years ago we had a bad hurricane and we were without power for over a week. People went nuts. Guys like Randall and I gassed up before it hit, lit our Coleman lanterns at night, cooked outdoors on our grilles, and basically had a great "camping week". The entertainment was watching the summer rental crowd buying every battery and candle in sight, and using bottled water to flush their toilets. Walter

Harry Woods · Post by **Harry Woods** » Apr 10th, '08, 17:06

White Bear is on target regarding the storm risk faced by east end residents of Long Island. We have not seen a significant storm in twenty-two years and that was pale in comparison to the storm of 1938. The population has swelled in recent years and evacuation would require a long lead time to move people west to safety. On a good day it can take three-hours in rush hour to get off the island. Think about the confusion and panic in a total evacuation. Leave your property and Bertram's behind and protect your family.

Tony Meola · Post by **Tony Meola** » Apr 10th, '08, 18:59

Harry

Don't leave the Bertram behind. Best way to evacuate. Run it west and up the Hudson as far as you can go. I am sure once you are up around Albany you can find a safe harbor,plus it will get you off the Island faster than the car will, especially if the whole place is emptying out.

bob lico · Post by **bob lico** » Apr 10th, '08, 19:32

no mikey not chicken little just a little older and maybe as i walk out the door in the morning and seeing the bay on my right knowing fire island at 5' above sea level is the only protection from the storm surge and my love ones life just makes me think a bit.
basic life have changed we no can fish 12 months a year if you want to cod season is just ending as flounder/striper begins.april 10th 73 degrees what the hell is going on. for a hundred years we started planting brocolie and cold weather crop may 15 (the last day of possible frost)now april 10th same thing in the fall crops till december instead of nov 15.what does it all mean to a hurricane abilty to track in warm water i don`t know anymore so many conflicting views.i just hope your right bruce.

Sean B · Post by **Sean B** » Apr 10th, '08, 21:20

While it certainly is good to be as prepared as possible for these things... I also think that to worry (too much) about something that you can't control is a misuse of imagination.

The story below might be an explanation for the nice quiet 2006 and 2007 seasons (unless you were in Mexico)... or really mean nothing at all... but check this out and maybe feel better about it:

Storms tamed as sea heats
Warming may curb hurricanes
FLORIDA TODAY â€¢ April 5, 2008

The movie poster for Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" depicts a hurricane swirling from a pair of smokestacks.

But some scientists think global warming actually will decrease the number of hurricanes that form over the Atlantic Ocean each year.

On Friday, a pair of climate experts said rising sea surface temperatures in and near the Caribbean could strengthen vertical wind shear. Robust wind shear is the bane of hurricanes, as it tends to tear apart cyclones during their formative stages.

"If (global warming) were to happen, that is an effect which should be more hostile to hurricane-building," said Thomas Knutson, research meteorologist with the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, N.J.

Knutson and Chris Landsea, science and operations officer at
the National Hurricane Center in Miami, spoke about global warming during the closing session of the National Hurricane Conference in Orlando.

The duo said historical observation data and computer models debunk doomsday scenarios that foresee armadas of deadly hurricanes slamming into the Southeast.

"Any (hurricane) trend we're seeing due to global warming -- and I do agree global warming's real, and man-made causes contribute to it -- really has very limited impact, very tiny changes," Landsea said.

The annual conference wrapped up Friday at the Rosen Centre Hotel. Organizers estimated that 1,750 people attended, fewer than the past couple of years.

The experts' comments came the day after reports surfaced that CNN founder Ted Turner thinks global warming will trigger widespread human cannibalism within a few decades.

Both scientists referred to the global warming studies of ocean climatologist Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Emanuel noted that, from 1972 to 2004, Atlantic surface temperatures and hurricane intensity were closely linked.

William Gray, the widely known Colorado State University hurricane forecaster, routinely uses the annual April conference as a platform to bash global warming theories.

He gave a four-page statement to FLORIDA TODAY, arguing that the scientific consensus on global warming is bogus and that "a mild form of McCarthyism has developed toward those scientists who do not agree" that mankind is in danger.

"We are also brainwashing our children on the warming topic. We have no better example than Al Gore's alarmists and inaccurate movie which is being shown in our schools and being hawked by warming activists with little or no meteorological-climate background," Gray wrote.

Sean B · Post by **Sean B** » Apr 10th, '08, 21:30

Hey here is a thought: maybe the hurricanes themselves help create warm sea temps through some mechanism... maybe like Randall stirring up all the ice with his kayak paddles... so having a bunch of them for a few years warms up the oceans, which causes the wind shear that keeps the storms from developing... thus causing less hurricanes. A self-correcting the system, as most of non-mankind nature is.

I like my explanation above a whole lot better than the doomsdayers

Harry Babb · Post by **Harry Babb** » Apr 10th, '08, 21:32

Last night our local news program told us that the National Hurricane Council predicts that there will be 17 tropical depressions and they factored it down to say that 4 major hurricanes are predicted to hit the Gulf Coast.

Last year they had a similar forcast and then half way thru the season (with no storms on the Gulf Coast) they produced another prediction that said there were not going to have a very active season.........wonder what gave it away.

I wonder if the initial prediction could have been sponsored by Home Depot and Lowes?????? In a somewhat weak economy?????

But on the other hand when a storm DOES form its increditable how accruate the forcasters are in predicting its path........My hat's off to the metrologist that work deligently to warn us

So far DeNada is still on the hill but I am working hard to have her back in her river home before the storms hit.

Harry

34Hatt · Post by **34Hatt** » Apr 11th, '08, 07:31

Tony Meola wrote:Harry

Don't leave the Bertram behind. Best way to evacuate. Run it west and up the Hudson as far as you can go. I am sure once you are up around Albany you can find a safe harbor,plus it will get you off the Island faster than the car will, especially if the whole place is emptying out.

My Idea has always been too run up the Ct river since I am on the North fork. Fuel it up and run as far as I can go!

Dug · Post by **Dug** » Apr 11th, '08, 08:35

I just make sure my insurance is paid up, and cross the fingers. I like the river idea, but remember storm surges and rain can wreak havoc. In '38, Providence flooded due to all of the surge from Narragansett bay having surge, and that is why they now have enormous hurricane barriers.

Worcester flooded due to the rain. For those of you who remember, we had a flood here in worcester at one of our plants 3 or so years ago due to a heck of a rainstorm that was not hurricane related. So that is still a reality.

From a temp standpoint here in Central MA, we enjoyed a day that hit 72 yesterday. It was wonderful. I think it had been 130 days or so since the thermometer had been over 70 here. That being said I was out mountain biking on Tuesday, and saw snow still on the ground in a couple places. Not much, but snow. We had snow cover all winter long. That has been a rarity for a while. From November to roughly late March.

If we have a huge storm in NE, anything over category 3, I figure it is a cross your fingers, make sure you are well supplied, armed (thanks to the NO experience!) and insured. And prepared to take the insurers to court afterwards, as they won't want to pay anyway...

Dug

randall · Post by **randall** » Apr 11th, '08, 08:50

gloria in i think 84...no electricity at my house for 13 days and i didnt have a generator. caren bailed after 4 days but i actually enjoyed it. flushed the toilet with bay water and took showers when it rained. the big problem out here is trees. the area is heavily forested and the wind shear is like a hot knife through butter....takes the top 20 feet off the trees and they land where they land......gets messy. my house is 35 feet above sea level....im not leaving.

Capt. DQ · Post by **Capt. DQ** » Apr 11th, '08, 10:01

Here it is in a nutshell,

"We are also brainwashing our children on the warming topic. We have no better example than Al Gore's alarmists and inaccurate movie which is being shown in our schools and being hawked by warming activists with little or no meteorological-climate background," Gray wrote

Mother nature has been taking care of herself longer than You and I have been on this earth.

Everyday you walk out your door, your in danger of something. All you can do is be prepare during hurricane season if you live on the coast as well as inland also, other than that, just enjoy life and be happy, GO FISHING on your B31 and enjoy, I am.

DQ

Charlie J · Post by **Charlie J** » Apr 11th, '08, 13:10

i worked thru gloria from start to finish restoring electric. gloria was a pussy cat compared to the 38 storm. long island will be devastated if a major storm hits the island, it will be another new orleans, evacuation will become a mess.

Capt Dick Dean · Post by **Capt Dick Dean** » Apr 11th, '08, 16:44

My sister-in-law in Naples, Fl said the water is already at 84 degrees. She said this temp usually comes in August. People are already talking about it.

Question: how do you figure out how high your house is above sea level?

mike ohlstein · Post by **mike ohlstein** » Apr 11th, '08, 17:08

Capt Dick Dean wrote:Question: how do you figure out how high your house is above sea level?

With a hand held GPS.

In Memory Walter K · Post by **In Memory Walter K** » Apr 11th, '08, 17:11

Dick- Take a hand held GPS with you next time you're on the boat. Go to the set-up mode and when you get to altitude, set it to zero feet. Put the unit in your pocket. When you get home, turn it on again. It should tell you what altitude you're standing at. Walter

CaptPatrick · Post by **CaptPatrick** » Apr 11th, '08, 17:20

Question: how do you figure out how high your house is above sea level?

First, you need to build a temporary tower on you lot. Has to be high enough to see over the tree line or any hills or mountains between you and the sea. Carefully measure the tower height for later calculations.

Run a line string from the top of the tower to above the nearest ocean. Hang the line with a standard sky hook, (Acmey is a good brand). Drop a plumb bob from the horizontal line to the sea surface, measure the length & deduct the tower height. There you have it...

Actually, if you have a hand GPS you can calibrate it for elevation the next time you're on the boat at sea level. Should show 0 elevation on the boat, sitting on the cockpit deck. Then when you're back home sit on the drive way, take a reading & the elevation will show for your house...

also you can call the municipality that keeps your property records & ask them to look it up for you.

Br,

Patrick

randall · Post by **randall** » Apr 11th, '08, 17:37

hell, i looked at the topo map.

charlie.....i have my house because of the hurricane of 38. it was a tool shed on an oceanfront estate. the main house and all the other outbuildings were completely destroyed.......but the tool shed only had minor damage. during WWII it was rolled on logs to its present location and put on concrete blocks....one in each corner. the bar down the street and 3 other "houses" were the only buildings anywhere near here.

another 38 like hurricane will at least be seen coming but the damage factor will be a thousand times more. gloria took down every power line in springs.

Sean B · Post by **Sean B** » Apr 11th, '08, 21:57

We got smacked pretty good by both Frances and Jeanne in 2004, within three weeks of each other. Both lasted about 12-16 hours each in our area.

Frances was wonderful, because everyone in town left - I mean everybody. Except for some cops it was a complete ghost town. We stocked up on propane beforehand, and cooked most of the contents of the freezer during the week after that the power was out.

Afterwards my house made the front page of the local newspaper, because of a spray paint message I put on the window/plywood for anyone who might be left in town. I never scanned the newspaper, but I took my own picture during the storm:

The Pro-Line in the yard was from those pre-Bertram days... forgive me

Sean B · Post by **Sean B** » Apr 11th, '08, 22:02

during Jeanne I started getting stir crazy and did my own version of one of those weather channel guys, which if I do this right... will appear below

<embed width="448" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://i11.photobucket.com/player.swf?f ... lIdiot.flv">

See? Hurricanes can be fun

bob lico · Post by **bob lico** » Apr 11th, '08, 22:20

dug mentions insurance that would not help to much in south sayville.houses here were built prior to the revolution to 1930,mostly victorians,and queen annes.we would have to inport old european carpenters i doubt the insurance would go for this.i have been in a few that still have the original seeded glass windows.randall would have a life time job on the hand carved mahogany staircases.-------please i don`t want to think of it.a town of individual shops;no home centers,fast food of any type but we allowed a starbuck made as a european outside cafe.we still have old fashion parades and salute the stars and stripes as it passes,held proudly by the marine corp veterans color guard.we shut down the hold main street 8 times a year and divert traffic around the town ---f--k them.we had a bag pipe band and fallen horseman for the battalion chief of fdny after 9-11. thats why i live here.

bob lico · Post by **bob lico** » Apr 11th, '08, 22:45

sean you are my hero with that window display.i figured the 30cal m-60 gun barrel out the window would act as a pretty good deterant.luckely we don`t have any of the hat backward wearing there brother pants group in this town.about 10 miles away but if new orleans is any indication of after storm looting there is no getting away from the mobs.

gplume · Post by **gplume** » Apr 11th, '08, 22:46

There is an upside to an active hurricane season-

GREAT SURF!!

Maybe we'll get lucky and they will be like Felix (95) and just lurk off shore and pump good waves in with out the nasty weather.

Bruce · Post by **Bruce** » Apr 12th, '08, 06:01

maybe like Randall stirring up all the ice with his kayak paddles

Now see. Thats the first thing that makes sense. Disrupting the major current flows.

Sean,
Proline is acceptable. Here's mine after o4 with the neighbors tree resting on it.

Sean B · Post by **Sean B** » Apr 12th, '08, 08:17

Ouch that tree is a bummer.

During '04 one of my next-door neighbors at the time was a rental house. They had one of those big scraggly florida pines nearby where I park my boat, and after Frances it was leaning my way.

No renters were home, and I had no way to contact the owners in NY... so in the week of boredom that followed the storm, I just cut the damn thing down myself and hauled the pieces to the road. Never got any grief over it.

Good thing too since Jeanne happened a couple weeks later and that storm was much worse in intensity, at least for us. I likely would have had a tree sitting on my Proline too, and I'm a little lax when it comes to paying outrageous boat insurance premiums.

Another good '04 hurricane story: during one of them - don't remember which - a big metal shed had come loose and was making its way through the neighborhood. It was all twisted up crushed, but still in one mangled piece, and was beginning to blow across the street towards my house.

Well, during a somewhat lull in the storm I went out there (with my weather-channel-guy slicker) and used a black powder-activated fastener gun to nail the damn thing to the street. Maybe that wasn't the brightest thing I ever did because I almost got decapitated by a flying piece of aluminum soffit.

It was worth it a week later though, when we got to watch the garbage guys try to pull it off the street... and of course they could not because I had nailed it to the road with about ten 2" long steel pins. For at least ten minutes they tried to get it up, trying to figure out why this particular piece of twisted sheet metal was so heavy. It's the simple pleasures in life that are the most amusing

Mikey · Post by **Mikey** » Apr 12th, '08, 08:28

Sean, I damn near peed in my pants. Sounds like a Kennedy story.
Wish I'd thought of it.
Expect to see that weather channel guy doing his standup in a hurricane and a piece of soffit go by and same guy standing there with no head.
Been though nine hurricanes including two biggies. GET OUT! You can always buy more stuff, but not if you're headless.

randall · Post by **randall** » Apr 12th, '08, 09:26

gplume wrote:There is an upside to an active hurricane season-

GREAT SURF!!

Maybe we'll get lucky and they will be like Felix (95) and just lurk off shore and pump good waves in with out the nasty weather.

here the winner was gabrielle....first week of september 1989.....flawless 15 foot waves with dead calm and sunny skies. parked herself 300 miles offshore. the first day as the swell rose there were 30 guys in the water. at 2 in the afternoon there were 4 of us left. i kept riding as long as i was making the waves but finally had to straighten off and got washed through the rocks to the beach. when i looked at the ocean i really couldnt believe what i was lookin at. have the video. swell lasted almost a week and was super clean the whole time.

Sean B · Post by **Sean B** » Apr 12th, '08, 20:23

Mikey wrote:GET OUT! You can always buy more stuff, but not if you're headless.

No way. I ran from Floyd in '99... and all I can tell you about that experience - in this medium - is this: I'm through running.

Since I quit running, the hurricanes either quit being too important or they don't come at all.

So I'm continuing to stand my ground, hubris and all, and I'm gonna see how it plays out.

Another statistic? We'll see...

Skipper Dick · Post by **Skipper Dick** » Apr 13th, '08, 07:47

We ran from Charley because it was changing directions to come right up the Caloosahatchee River and give us surges of 8 to 9 1/2 feet so they predicted. We went North to my wife's parents condo while they were spending the summer up in NY. The condo was a three story conmplex made of concrete.

Well, Charley changed directions again and came right up Charlotte Harbor and directly over the in-laws condo, ripping the roof off the entire complex and terrorizing us for more than a half hour. When it was over, my Chevvy pickup was the only vehicle in the parking lot that wasn't covered in trusses. There was absolutely nothing of value left in the apartment and there was a 2 x 4 stuck right in the side of the fridge in the kitchen. When the roof went and just minutes later, it got quiet and calm and you could see blue sky directly above you. That was obviously the eye. We waited out the rest of the storm in a ground floor apartment and came home to a small tear in the fabric on the pool cage. It took me 5 minutes to repair it and another 20 minutes to pick up all the avocados and limbs from the tree. Nothing else was damaged.

The Bertram was high on her lift and lashed to the pilings to hold down the movement and the canvas top was in the garage.

We stay put now. BTW, the condo was in Punta Gorda, the center of all the devistation.

Dick

Mikey · Post by **Mikey** » Apr 13th, '08, 10:02

Sean, Dick,
This is what our friend in Port Eades said, God bless him.

Sean B · Post by **Sean B** » Apr 13th, '08, 10:49

Well I don't live directly on the coast (which is certainly a bad place to be during a big storm), and my house is high up on the flood plain and is very hurricane hardened.

I also have my beloved boat in the (sheltered) harbor around the corner to beersit during storms now, so that tends to keep me here.

A big CAT 5 with a direct bead on my town might change my mind about a few things... but after having been in ~120 MPH winds for 7-8+ hours straight, twice, I can tell you that the category 2 and 3 storms aren't so bad. It's fun to go outside and experience the amazing sheer power that these things have - it's very humbling.

When hurricane Erin hit this area in the early '90's, a category 1 with maybe 110 MPH winds, I spent most of the storm hanging plywood over a local high school that was in the middle of structural renovation project that I was in charge of. The school was mistakenly NOT cancelled as a public shelter (not my mistake). They had hunderds of people there and the building's upper walls were wide open... recipe for disaster. So we hung plywood in the wind and rain, and got dozens of sheets up, until the sheets of plywood would literally fly out of our hands as we picked them up. The school survived, and after that experience I tend to think of windstorms as good fun.

I haven't been in a direct hit by the eye from a big storm yet though, but the odds of that happening and killing you in any particular location are probably less than the odds of being killed on the highway during the evac due to some panicked idiot doing something stupid on the road.

If I were worried about the house not making it for some reason, I would sit through the big winds in a car wedged up tight under a suitable highway overpass bridge. I even have the particular overpass picked out for such a case, and it's right next to the harbor.

So I'll be sticking around. Come what may.

bertram31.com

bad feeling on upcoming hurricane season.

bad feeling on upcoming hurricane season.

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