Monster Hurricane...

Lord Jim · Post by **Lord Jim** » Mon Sep 02, 2019 8:46 am

Dorian struck the northern Bahamas on Sunday as a Category 5 hurricane, and continued to menace the southeastern coast of the United States from Florida to the Carolinas.

Hurricane warnings and storm surge warnings and watches are posted for nearly all of Florida’s Atlantic coast. Georgia and South Carolina announced mandatory evacuations in coastal areas.

As Hurricane Dorian struck the northwestern Bahamas on Sunday, the National Hurricane Center said that the maximum sustained winds around the eye of the “extremely dangerous” storm had reached 185 miles an hour, making it a “catastrophic” storm with “devastating winds.”

Early Monday, after the eye of the storm had reached Grand Bahama Island, the winds had slowed slightly to 175 miles an hour. The center said further gradual weakening was forecast but fluctuations in intensity up or down could occur.

Early images and video emerging from the Abaco Islands showed scenes of devastation as the powerful, slow-moving storm churned its way through the islands. Forecasters said Dorian would continue to lash the islands for much of the day on Monday. Storm surges of as much as 18 to 23 feet were possible, enough to swamp many low-lying areas, and as much as 30 inches of rain could fall in some locations before the storm passes.

The hurricane center warned that no one should venture outdoors into the eye of the storm.

“The hurricane will move dangerously close to the Florida east coast late Monday through Tuesday night,” the hurricane center said.[The course of this storm has been extremely unpredictable; a slight jog west could bring a devastating landfall to Florida. On the current path with winds so high it will still cause significant damage over a large section of of coastal Florida; a slight jog east will cause the storm to largely miss Florida and make landfall somewhere further north, hopefully as a weaker storm in a less populated area.]

Hurricane and storm surge watches on the coast were extended Sunday night to reach all the way north to the Florida-Georgia border. A hurricane warning was posted for the Florida coast from near Jupiter to near Titusville, indicating the area that forecasters see as most likely to experience hurricane-force winds on Monday; a storm surge warning was posted from Lantana, near Boca Raton, to near Titusville. Storm surge along the Florida coast could reach 4 to 7 feet in places, forecasters said.

The hurricane center said on Sunday that there were wind gusts exceeding 220 miles an hour — three times the wind speed to qualify as a hurricane. Officials said the storm was the strongest on record in the Bahamas and one of the most intense in the Atlantic in the last century. Hurricane-force winds extend 45 miles outward from the center of the storm, the center said, with tropical storm-force winds as much as 140 miles outward.

Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia and Gov. Henry McMaster of South Carolina each announced mandatory evacuations for certain coastal areas of their states, to take effect at noon on Monday.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/01/us/h ... dates.html

ex-khobar Andy · Post by **ex-khobar Andy** » Mon Sep 02, 2019 1:51 pm

Probably my longest-term friend that I am still in contact with (49 years now) lives on Grand Bahama. He sent me this message:

"Thanks for your good wishes. Hope all is well with you. Still in the middle of the hurricane. No power, water, cable but phone still working. Best wishes, John."

RayThom · Post by **RayThom** » Mon Sep 02, 2019 7:00 pm

I'm praying to God that Dorian somehow makes a very slow pass over Mar-a-Lago.

It's the only way the Grifter-in-Chief might start thinking that global warming is not fake news.

Crackpot · Post by **Crackpot** » Mon Sep 02, 2019 9:09 pm

All that will do is ensure that mar-a-largo gets speedy and adequate federal assistance.

RayThom · Post by **RayThom** » Mon Sep 02, 2019 9:45 pm

Crackpot wrote:All that will do is ensure that mar-a-largo gets speedy and adequate federal assistance.

Hmmm, like this:

Did Trump get $17 million for hurricane damage to Mar-a-Lago that never happened?
https://mashable.com/2017/09/08/trump-m ... 7-million/

BoSoxGal · Post by **BoSoxGal** » Tue Sep 03, 2019 1:56 am

I am a member if several sailing/cruising group pages on Facebook and have been reading many posts from sailing friends in the area and their contacts with friends on the islands; apparently Abaco has been just ripped to shreds, with a number of businesses and homes flattened. It sounds like loss of life toll may be grim.

The water is still very warm - very worried about Florida, et al.

I’m pissed about these hurricanes - all these places I was going to see later are being fundamentally changed by these events. I always wanted to see the Keys but after one of the hurricanes (Irma?) flattened all the funky old shit, by the time I see it, it will all be completely changed (and homogenized) in character. Same for places like Abaco and Puerto Rico and those other Caribbean islands that Maria flattened. I really wish I’d thought outside the box and done my island hopping as a dive guide in my youth, rather than the whole college, etc. and desk job rat race.

Too late.

Gob · Post by **Gob** » Tue Sep 03, 2019 9:20 am

Why do some people believe God will divert the course of a hurricane, if enough people ask him nicely, or grovel to him? He's not done it before, why start now?

MajGenl.Meade · Post by **MajGenl.Meade** » Tue Sep 03, 2019 11:24 am

(a) they are a bit loony (though I'm sure they're very nice)

(b) depends from where they wanted it diverted and where it subsequently went, don't it? Might have worked for aught we know!

RayThom · Post by **RayThom** » Tue Sep 03, 2019 7:57 pm

Gob wrote:Why do some people believe God will divert the course of a hurricane, if enough people ask him nicely, or grovel to him? He's not done it before, why start now?

Holy shit!

Are you saying that I cannot petition the Lord with prayer?

Scooter · Post by **Scooter** » Wed Sep 04, 2019 1:37 am

Gob wrote:Why do some people believe God will divert the course of a hurricane, if enough people ask him nicely, or grovel to him? He's not done it before, why start now?

I remember Pat Robertson crowing once about how his outfit's main headquarters or whatever had been spared being hit by a hurricane, when the actual path of the storm had flattened thousands of homes and killed some folks in the process, not sure why we were supposed to think that was a good thing.

ex-khobar Andy · Post by **ex-khobar Andy** » Wed Sep 04, 2019 2:14 am

After one of the recent mass shootings there was someone who told us that her relative, who was badly wounded, had survived because God was walking alongside.

I understand taking comfort where you can and I cannot put myself in her shoes, but come on.

It's like the saying: there are no atheists in a foxhole. Really? People are shooting at me, and I'm going to say, "There must be a god after all!"?

BoSoxGal · Post by **BoSoxGal** » Wed Sep 04, 2019 3:33 am

What is fundamentally despicable about that sort of belief is that it quite logically demands also that the people who got shot and died are people God wasn’t walking beside - that anyone who dies or suffers clearly deserves it since God is capable of saving and sometimes chooses not to.

I find the rational truth that all of life is random chance to be a far more comforting perspective.

RayThom · Post by **RayThom** » Wed Sep 04, 2019 5:37 am

O, ye of little faith.

"HE moves in a mysterious ways; HIS wonders to perform; HE plans HIS footsteps in the sea, and rides upon the storm."

MajGenl.Meade · Post by **MajGenl.Meade** » Wed Sep 04, 2019 6:59 am

Now that's a funny cartoon!

Pedanticism

:

God moves in a mysterious way (not ways) and he plants his feet (not plans). William Cowper.

I like the final verse:

Blind unbelief is sure to err
And scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain

BSG, I think your premise and conclusion are wrong. I too am uncomfortable with the lack of understanding of the theological implications of those "God saved X from Y" statements. But such folk (in my personal experience) never believe that those who don't survive disasters "deserve" it. Those in the world who do are against Christ (and there are some big "names" amongst them).

Scooter · Post by **Scooter** » Wed Sep 04, 2019 2:24 pm

BoSoxGal wrote:What is fundamentally despicable about that sort of belief is that it quite logically demands also that the people who got shot and died are people God wasn’t walking beside - that anyone who dies or suffers clearly deserves it since God is capable of saving and sometimes chooses not to.

In fairness, I don't think most believers see it that way, perhaps more like God takes what is and maybe can use it to some purpose, say like the fact that a James Baker or Gabby Giffords getting shot turned them into effective advocates for better gun control, or Annie Sullivan being close to blind herself put her on the path to becoming Helen Keller's teacher, or even Scooter becoming HIV+ meant that I used skills that might have otherwise been used for some crass corporate purpose were instead directed towards getting improvements in treatment access. I don't buy into it anymore myself, but I don't think that most believers want to believe in a version of a God as callouis as you describe.

Big RR · Post by **Big RR** » Wed Sep 04, 2019 2:49 pm

Scooter--I've known that type of "Christians" as well as those who take the delight in the way god punishes "evil doers" much as he did to Sodom and Gomorrah, or how he drowned the entire earth except for Noah and his family, or ... These are the so-called christians who will foght for the unborn, and cheer the bombing of an abortion clinic with the attendant deaths of those sinner seeking and performing abortions. Meade is correct, the are against christ (or at least his teachings), but there are plenty of them all around us, just as there are in all other religions.

Of course, there are others who will make great sacrifices on behalf others, expecting nothing in return.

And BSG, I'm also quite content to believe that god rolls dice (why this bothered Einstein is beyond me), but concede that beyond what we see as mere "chance" there may well be something more profound that we are incapable of understanding at this time.

BoSoxGal · Post by **BoSoxGal** » Wed Sep 04, 2019 3:40 pm

The whole prosperity gospel is premised on the notion that some are deserving of abundance ordained by God, and others obviously are not. It’s disgusting and far too prevalent, at least in the American Christian community.

Big RR · Post by **Big RR** » Wed Sep 04, 2019 4:31 pm

It's also a complete load of crap.

Lord Jim · Post by **Lord Jim** » Wed Sep 04, 2019 4:36 pm

I think it's a far cry from "prosperity gospel" to a person expressing thanks to God for having a loved one spared from a terrible tragedy, (even if that tragedy befell others)

I agree with Scooter and Meade that those folks (at least as an overwhelming general rule) are not thinking at all that those who were not as fortunate some how deserved it...

In fact generally I find those that express this thanks also express grief and sympathy for those people who did experience the loss they were spared...

RayThom · Post by **RayThom** » Wed Sep 04, 2019 5:02 pm

Said the devout Christian after a catastrophic disaster decimated his town, "We're just thankful to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, that He didn't kill us all."

Amen, and hallelujah!

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