I discovered I had more connections to Tampa, Florida. Two weeks ago, one of my cousins purchased a condo in Clearwater, Florida. (smh Just hit my head with a hammer!)
A Facebook friend in the UK worried about a cousin who was going to ride the storm out in Palm Harbor. That place has some elevation - up to 80 feet above sea level! - but if the storm surge is big she could be isolated for weeks.
Fortunately the storm surge was not as large as feared, because the eye of the hurricane crossed the coast south of Sarasota and the winds in Tampa Bay and vicinity were mostly from the east, which greatly limited the potential damage.
There's still a lot of damage, though.
My friend Dwight reported on Thu, Oct 10, 2:15 PM:
Thanks again for all your guidance. The good news is that according to our next-door neighbor, there was no damage to our building, and we did not lose power.
I'm planning on taking a quick run home tomorrow to check it out.
Good for Dwight! Linda still needs attention from the surgeon, however. Now that the storm has passed I hope that surgery can get scheduled.
To flesh out the record, here are two E-Mails I sent Dwight as the storm approached.
On Wed, Oct 9, 2:20 PM, I wrote:
I hope all is well, under the circumstances.
The storm now has what they call a sheared structure, with the rains and winds to the north of the eye and the eye open to the south. The storm has weakened to a Category 3, but it has also expanded in size. Radar shows you are getting heavy rain at this moment. There are numerous tornado warnings as well.
It looks like there was a subtle shift in direction too, with the eye heading towards just south of Tampa Bay. Eyewall should reach the coast in about 2 hours (7:20 pm EDT), with the eye arriving in almost 5 hours (10 pm, or so).
On Tue, Oct 8, 1:07 AM, I wrote:
Hurricane Milton hit major milestones today, with the fifth-lowest central pressure on record for an Atlantic hurricane (897 millibars), and reaching and sustaining Category 5 strength. It's very difficult for a hurricane to sustain Category 5 strength, since just about anything will disrupt it. Tonight it's at Category 4 as it goes through an eyewall replacement cycle.
As it encounters drier air with more shear tomorrow, it should weaken to Category 3 (the closest analogy is Hurricane Katrina, in 2005, which did the same thing). The hurricane should expand in size as it weakens, however, which will just endanger even more people as it rolls onto land.
Best guess right now is that the eye will come ashore just south of Tampa Bay. In general, it's better to be north of the eye, since the motion of the storm subtracts from the wind speed rather than adds to it.
People are rightfully anxious about many things. One is that people have been putting belongings that got waterlogged during Hurricane Helene into piles on the street, which will serve as plentiful projectiles when wind speeds are high. Stay away from easily-punctured exterior walls if possible. All the usual caveats apply. Stay away from the shoreline, if possible, due to storm surge. Have plenty of supplies, particularly water.
Praying that you and all your friends and relations will come through this OK.
