Kevin_Cho wrote:I realize there are many Floridians here, and a great deal at the forum at this time, especially West and SW Floridians. However, there is a great deal of emphasis on Tampa and Key West and all points in between. However, many people outside of Florida that are new to the geography of the area, there are very large population centers other than Tampa that are down here on the Southwest Coast.
A landfalling tropical system at this trajectory makes it hard to pinpoint where a storm will impact and make landfall directly. No doubt at this point, West Florida and South West Florida will almost definately feel some kind of direct impact from this storm, no matter what intensity.
However, as I said before South Florida isn't just Tampa, Miami, Palm Beach, and Fort Lauderdale, and West Florida isn't just Tampa and Key West. We need to remember the other large population centers between those key cities in Florida.
Here in Southwest Florida there are well over 500,000 residents in the Fort Myers/Cape Coral Metropolitan area in Lee County, over 300,000 in the Naples/Bonita Springs/Marco Island Metropolitan area, in Collier County which is directly south of Fort Myers. There are nearly 600,000 residents in Sarasota/Bradenton Metropolitan area, directly north of Port Charllote/Punta Gorda Metropolitan area, which was hit by Charley last year with about 120,000 residents.
All in all, there are around 2 Million people in large metropolitan cities other than Tampa and Key West over here on the Southwest Coast, and we are all getting slightly agitated about this new system, and we all must watch this system closely, but not just from Tampa to Key West, but more likely from Alabama's Gulf Coast to Key West, and the Florida Striats. This will be a difficult system to forecast both on Intensity and on it's path.
Kevin Cho - East Naples, FL
Junior: Naples High School
Don't worry, nobody will forget about naples or fort myers.
, plus some of the inland communities like Lehigh Acres and Clewiston.
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