Quote:
Originally Posted by Shimpy
Carl.....I was going by radio reports while this was happening. It only lost 10 kts from coast to coast around the center, and that was estimated but you have to realize the forward speed of the storm has to be added to the wind speed on one side and subtracted on the other side that is moving away for a true wind speed. As this storm picked up forward speed so did the wind damage on the southern side of a counter-clockwise storm moving easterly.
This was always reminded to us during hurricane broadcasts by meteorologists.
You are right that storms lose intensity when the eye moves over land but this is a much narrower part of Florida where we live. Wilma was very large with feeder bands extending out over a lot of water after the eye came ashore.
Our best bet, if we had to have one, would be a strike from the south where the storm has to travel over much land. Our worst bet would be if it came in from the Gulf.
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I wouldn't want to give anyone a false sense of security, but having reviewed the NOAA interactive map of
all hurricanes to have struck Florida in the past 170 years, I find only three weather events that struck Lady Lakes/The Villages. They were:
1910 - An unnamed Tropical Storm that passed East of Lady Lake.
1944 - An unnamed Category 1 Hurricane that struck The Villages area.
1968 - An unnamed Tropical Depression that struck Wildwood and passed to the Northwest of The Villages.
All of these came onshore from the Gulf of Mexico in the general area of Tampa, which has not sustained a direct hurricane strike in over 100 years.
This is not to say that severe weather associated with a hurricane would not disrupt normal activities in The Villages, particularly if electric power were to be lost for a while. During hurricane season it is prudent to have adequate stocks of water, food, flashlights and other items which we are cautioned to obtain every time a hurricane threatens.
Now, the point of this is that the thread wandered away from a discussion of energy use differences between stucco and frame houses. I repeat what I have been told before, The Villages developer claims that all of their houses, of both types of construction are built to the standards to resist a Category 2 hurricane.
Hurricanes are fairly predictable in the short term. If The Villages was to be threatened there would be plenty of warning to evacuate, with I-75 quite close, and I-95 a reasonable distance away.
I've said this before. When hurricanes threaten, people along the coastline are told that they might want to consider evacuating to inland locations, such as ours.