Irma Infatuation 

Irma is on everyone’s lips here in Florida. Governor Rick Scott came out in a news conference yesterday and used the “A” word to describe Irma’s potential for destruction in the Miami area. He said that Irma could be worse than Hurricane Andrew.

Andrew is our benchmark for bad hurricanes. We celebrated his twenty-fifth anniversary just a week or so ago, and he remains vividly in the minds of everyone who lived through him. He destroyed an entire South Florida town-Homestead-stripping homes down to their concrete foundations. He destroyed 64,000 of them. He killed 65 people who knew he was coming. He was the most destructive hurricane from 1992 to 2005, when Katrina finally surpassed him and took the belt.

Hurricanes are like right-handed prize fighters. Their greatest power is in their leading edge and to the right side of the storm-that’s where the highest winds blow, that’s where the rain falls hardest. We’ve had many hurricanes since Andrew-tough punchers like Charlie, and bangers like Jeanne, Dennis, and Wilma, major hurricanes all. Irma threatens to be a bigger bully and a greater danger than any of them. If Irma is going to be as stone bad as Andrew, pay attention and get out of town, especially if you’re in her wheelhouse, which Miami appears to be.

The one hope I’m holding on to just now is the spaghetti-the lines on the weather map from different models. Floridians have become expert at reading the spaghetti the way that fortune tellers read tea leaves. The spaghetti, which was all over the map for a while, is now focused mostly in the waters right off the Atlantic coast. That’s good and bad. Good that the worst of the storm will be in the gulf stream, bad that the storm itself will be in the gulf stream and won’t likely lose much punch as she heads north. Ignore those silly little path lines that seem to imply that Irma will be safely out to sea. She’s too big. Hurricane and tropical storm force winds will cross the state as she passes north. Next stop, Charleston? Watch out, Carolinas.