78% in Miami Beach NOT Leaving!!

[Derek Ortt]

in a 4 or a 5, you also need to avacuate so that you are not in that high wind region.

This means totally leaving the eye wall region, or going about 50 miles inland so that the winds have reduced to cat 2 intensity

[T'Bonz]

Cat 3 or above and I'm gone. I can always find a new place to live. I can't ge t a new life.

Last year, we closely watched Frances and Jeanne. Had they been heading straight for us, bye. As it was, for Jeanne, I left my not-as-secure house and evac-ed over to my brother's. Same area, but safer place to be. (We don't have hurricane shutters, can't afford them as our house was built a year or two before they became required. I'm hoping we can dig up the funds to buy them this year. Plywood on a few windows just is a waste. )

[logybogy]

in a 4 or a 5, you also need to avacuate so that you are not in that high wind region.

This is not possible in South Florida with 5+ million people. It's not possible to evacuate that many people and even if you did, what's not to say the hurricane will change course and hit in central florida where all those 5+ million will flock to?

If a Category 5 is coming barreling down towards Dade, Broward, or Palm Beach, it will be impossible to pinpoint exactly where it will hit until just hours before landfall. Remember how everyone was saying Andrew was going to hit at county line and then it was downtown miami and then south dade. It shifted south during the night?

If a Category 5 Hurricane is barrelling down on South Florida, you are much safer in a post-Andrew constructed building (and even safer in the buildings built in the last couple years as the codes have been tightened considerably even since 2002.)

I also still stand by my original post. In a Cat 5, my chances of living are much higher in a 40 story newly constructed building on the beach made of reinforced steel and hurricane impact resistant glass throughout than a 30 year old crowded dade county shelter with questionable construction.

BTW, nobody is saying to stay in your 40th floor condo during the storm, but it's easy enough to go down to the 4th or 5th floor in a bunker like area (interior windowless hallway or firewalled stairwell) and ride out the storm there.

It's really a damned if you do and damned if you don't scenario. There will be massive damage in any cat 5, but do you trust living in new construction built to code on the beach or 30 year old crap inland?

[Derek Ortt]

well,

as I said, Cayman had the best building codes in the entire basin. Even Gilbert only caused moderate damage there, with cat 5 wind gusts and sustained cat 3 winds. It was LEVELED, including those concrete re-enforced structures. .

One must remember, a cat 5 hurricane is an F-3 tornado, only much longer and larger. concrete structures are heavily damaged by the winds in an F-3, plus, the miniswirls and downdrafts can be F-4.

Now, thankfully, the region that experiences those severe conditions is only about a 3 by 3 mile region

[Scorpion]

I agree, it would be a horrendous situation if a hurricane like 1947 hit South Florida. Most people wouldnt evacuate north, because they could potentially go right into the teeth of it. People who evacuate to shelter could be injured or killed because most shelters will be damaged or destroyed in Cat 4/5 winds. There is basically no safe option except to fly out, and 5 million people cannot do that. I would feel much safer at my home.