Hurricane Irma. Lesson to Learn

A couple of years ago we helped buyers from St. Petersburg, Russia, to purchase a house on Daytona’s Beachside. They were not here when Hurricane Matthew hit, and knew about hurricanes only from neighbors. Majority of what they hear is that it is no biggie, you can sit in your home, and that it is sort of fun.

And it worried me.

We pay attention to numbers. We are obsessed with categories of the hurricane. Common belief is that Cat 5 Hurricane is stronger and more dangerous, so if you are getting Hurricane Category 1, it is a walk in the park.

In reality it is only true if you compare the force of winds in the eye of a Hurricane. It might be more dangerous to be in the eye of Cat 2 Hurricane, than 80 miles away from the eye of Cat 5 Hurricane. The destructive Hurricane Charley in August 2004 was only weak Category 1, when it hit our area, but we had a lot of damage. And it is because we got hit with the eye of the Hurricane.

Hurricane Matthew in October of last year was Category 3, when it hit us, but the eye was offshore, so we had less damage, than after Hurricane Charley.

And often time people do not understand it.

After unprecedented evacuation and then Irma not really causing huge problem for our area, many are comlacent. They stayed, and it was nothing. But the winds actually also were not really strong. And keep in mind, a 10-mile an hour added to the strength of the hurricane causes 21% more damage.

What we do not want want to understand is that during Matthew the highest gust at Daytona International airport was registered at 92 MPH... On the beach the gusts were 115 MPH. And our windows survived. But the eye did not brush our shore, it was very close, but still in the ocean, and the gusts there were 135 MPH. and these 20 Miles would have produced 42% more damage.

Look at Irma. Two Caribbean islands, Anguilla and Barbuda are 29 miles apart, but Anguilla got a few trees down, and was back to business next day, and Barbuda was flattened. 95% of all structures were severely damaged.

But while we have all the predictions in the world, Hurricanes have lives of their own. And an eye shifting 30 miles is something that can easily happen. And this is what creates the difference.

These are slow moving systems, and there is plenty of time to evacuate, so not doing it is playing a Russian roulette.

Hurricane Irma changed the course and brushed the west coast of Florida, for the most part sparing Daytona area.

This time our clients from St. Petersburg, Russia were here. They refused to leave. They were excited…

I called them from New Orleans the morning after the Hurricane. I expected to hear them bragging. I was wrong… My friends were fine, kept squeezing towels to keep the water from coming under the sliding doors. They lost a few sections of the fence, but it was the attitude that surprised me. They told me that this probably was the most terrifying night of their life. That sitting under the stairs because of continuous warnings about tonadoes, they figured that they have one life, and no property is worth losing it, and that this was their first and last hurricane that they rode off in the house.

And I am glad that they learned Hurricane Irma’s lesson.

One day it could be worse.

The revolver in Russian roulette will fire...