Hurricane Florence could strengthen to 'life-threatening' Category 5, as about 1.5M people evacuate

[Teh One Who Knocks]

By Amy Lieu | Fox News


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President Donald Trump late Monday approved an emergency declaration for North Carolina as ‘life-threatening’ Hurricane Florence barrels toward the Carolinas and is expected to strengthen to a Category 5 storm.

The president's action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA to coordinate disaster relief efforts for "the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population," a White House statement said, according to South Carolina's The State.

State and local officials in the Carolinas and Virginia have ordered around 1.5 million people to evacuate, The Washington Post reported.
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The hurricane had sustained winds of 140 mph and remained a Category 4 storm Monday. Scientists warn, however, that the unusually warm water could accelerate the storm’s winds to 155 mph -- nearly Category 5 intensity, The Post reported.

Florence is expected to make landfall on Thursday and could become one of the most catastrophic hurricanes to hit the Eastern Seaboard in decades.

"Life-threatening freshwater flooding is likely from a prolonged and exceptionally heavy rainfall event," the National Weather Service said in an advisory.

The hurricane is also forecast to hit a stretch of coastline that's vulnerable to rising sea levels due to climate change, according to the Associated Press.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster ordered the state's entire coastline to be evacuated starting at noon Tuesday and predicted that 1 million people would flee.

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam issued an evacuation order that applies to about 245,000 people.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said his state was "in the bullseye" of the storm and urged people to "get ready now."

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This photo provided by NASA shows Hurricane Florence from the International Space Station on Monday, as
it threatens the U.S. East Coast.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan also declared a state of emergency, as officials "are preparing for any possible outcome, including the potential of historic, catastrophic, and life-threatening flooding in Maryland."

Several meteorologists said Florence could do what Hurricane Harvey did last year over Texas, dumping days of rain, although not likely not as bad.

"I think this is very Harvey-esque," said Brian McNoldy, University of Miami hurricane expert. "Normally, a landfalling tropical cyclone just keeps on going inland, gradually dissipating and raining itself out. But on rare occasions, the steering patterns can line up such that a storm slips into a dead zone between troughs and ridges."

The Associated Press contributed to this report

[Goofy]

Jeezo :shock: Stay safe peeps

[RBP]

:pray:

[lost in melb.]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Here is the latest forecast track and key messages for Hurricane Florence from the <a href="https://twitter.com/NHC_Atlantic?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NHC_Atlantic</a>. Florence is maintaining its strength and Hurricane and Storm Surge Watches will likely be issued on Tuesday. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/HurricaneFlorence?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#HurricaneFlorence</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/HurricanePreparedness?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#HurricanePreparedness</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/HurricanePrep?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#HurricanePrep</a> <a href="https://t.co/EbMVucjk54">pic.twitter.com/EbMVucjk54</a></p>&mdash; NWS (@NWS) <a href="https://twitter.com/NWS/status/1039349744848576512?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 11, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>


I'm just to the right of the red zone, bottom right pic. Is this a problem? :-k

[RBP]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Here is the latest forecast track and key messages for Hurricane Florence from the <a href="https://twitter.com/NHC_Atlantic?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NHC_Atlantic</a>. Florence is maintaining its strength and Hurricane and Storm Surge Watches will likely be issued on Tuesday. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/HurricaneFlorence?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#HurricaneFlorence</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/HurricanePreparedness?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#HurricanePreparedness</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/HurricanePrep?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#HurricanePrep</a> <a href="https://t.co/EbMVucjk54">pic.twitter.com/EbMVucjk54</a></p>— NWS (@NWS) <a href="https://twitter.com/NWS/status/1039349744848576512?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 11, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>


I'm just to the right of the red zone, bottom right pic. Is this a problem? :-k

You're in the states? In that zone? :shock:

Seriously, go inland. Today.

[lost in melb.]

I am about 2 hrs inland, to the right of that red band 8-[

[lost in melb.]

What are the wind speeds for orange? Can't read the bloody thing

[RBP]

What are the wind speeds for orange? Can't read the bloody thing

The models are almost always wrong, hard to tell really. Just lots of wind, lots of rain.

https://i.imgur.com/hS45swg.jpg

[RBP]

https://i.imgur.com/HON9lXN.jpg

[Muddy]

You're in the states? In that zone? :shock:

Seriously, go inland. Today.


I am about 2 hrs inland, to the right of that red band 8-[

Calm down.. You're fine. You're in DC right?

[lost in melb.]

Yeah, 2hrs west

[lost in melb.]

I can see now that's rainfall, not wind :doh:

How are you faring, Muddy?

[Teh One Who Knocks]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPYT9Vyu62A

[Muddy]

Yeah, 2hrs west


I can see now that's rainfall, not wind :doh:

How are you faring, Muddy?

If you are 2 hours inland from DC you are absolutely fine.. Im doing OK, just going to batten a few things down and clean the gutters. The East coast here are no strangers to hurricanes.. We do this stuff all the time. You have to watch the 'scarecasters' on TV. This is their time and they are going to milk it for all its worth. Remember, we dont have the issues like they do down in Texas/Louisiana. We are much higher ground and not completely brain dead to the whole thing like they seem to be. If you were in Virginia Beach I would say maybe leave the day before. But where you are I wouldn't sweat it.

[Muddy]

Shifting south at this point per models that can change hourly..

http://i63.tinypic.com/2mg73gm.png

[lost in melb.]

Cheers :thumbsup:

[Teh One Who Knocks]

By JEFF MARTIN | Associated Press


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ATLANTA – Just months ago, disaster planners simulated a Category 4 hurricane strike alarmingly similar to the real-world scenario now unfolding on a dangerously vulnerable stretch of the East Coast.

A fictional "Hurricane Cora" barreled into southeast Virginia and up the Chesapeake Bay to strike Washington, D.C., in the narrative created by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Argonne National Laboratory.

The result was catastrophic damage, which has some experts concerned that Hurricane Florence could produce a disaster comparable to 2005's Hurricane Katrina and in a part of the country that is famously difficult to evacuate.

The simulated hurricane knocked out power for most gas stations in the Mid-Atlantic region, damaged a nuclear power plant and sent debris into major shipping channels, among other problems, according to a Department of Energy simulation manual.

"What they were trying to do was create a worst-case scenario, but it's a very realistic scenario," said Joshua Behr, a research professor at Virginia's Old Dominion University who is involved in disaster modeling and simulations.

Florence is also a Category 4 storm and is now forecast to strike the same general area. On Tuesday, the National Hurricane Center's "cone" displaying Florence's projected path included the Hampton Roads, Virginia, region where Cora supposedly made landfall.

Senior leaders from the White House, along with more than 91 federal departments and agencies, participated in the "national level exercise" in late April and early May, FEMA said.

The fictional storm made landfall in the heavily populated Hampton Roads region, bringing a 15-foot (4.5-meter) storm surge and up to 9 inches (23 centimeters) of rain to some areas within the first six hours. That cut off main routes — used for escape as well as for rescuers — in the Hampton Roads area and elsewhere.

In the scenario, Cora also slammed hurricane-force winds into three nuclear power stations. One was damaged. Thirty-three major power substations were at risk from storm surge and major flooding.

Key roads and bridges were also damaged, and debris blocked the Newport News Channel and other waterways. Coast Guard Station Cape Charles lost power, and Coast Guard Station Chincoteague was severely damaged by high winds. The ferocious fictional storm also damaged and closed Reagan National Airport in Washington.

The make-believe hurricane threatened hundreds of cell towers, and the area where power was knocked out included 135 data centers in Virginia and another 60 in Maryland.

The Cora scenario projected hurricane-force winds inflicting "catastrophic damage" to homes and significant damage to critical infrastructure within a 50-mile radius of the hurricane's center.

The manual makes no mention of deaths and injuries, focusing instead on infrastructure.

Another striking similarity between the scenario and Hurricane Florence's path: already saturated ground on that part of the Mid-Atlantic coast.

"What I fear is that saturation, combined with a storm that kind of stalls out," said Behr, who has studied vulnerable populations in the paths of Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast and in the Hampton Roads region.

If parts of the East Coast are deluged with water, it could result in a catastrophe on the scale of Katrina, Behr said. And recovering from a disaster in the Hampton Roads region would also parallel Katrina's aftermath, he added.

"I believe that those patterns are also going to manifest in Hampton Roads if and when a large storm hits," he said. "The vulnerability of our populations are quite similar to New Orleans. Displacement, pain, suffering, property loss. All those things are going to play out in a fashion that has parallels to how Katrina played out."

Evacuation is known to be challenging in Hampton Roads, a coastal region inhabited by 1.7 million people in cities such as Norfolk, Virginia, and Virginia Beach.

"I've heard people say Virginia Beach is the world's largest cul-de-sac in the sense that there are not a lot of ways to evacuate," said Michelle Covi, an assistant professor of practice with Old Dominion University and Virginia Sea Grant, a science group that works with other universities in the region on coastal issues.

"You can't go north because of the Chesapeake Bay," she said. "You can't really go south, and in this case you wouldn't want to because the storm is that way. You generally want to go west, but again there are lots of water bodies."

In Charleston, South Carolina, where the average elevation is only around 11 feet (3.4 meters) above sea level, storm surge and flooding from a hurricane's drenching rain has the same effect — cutting off access, said Norman Levine, an associate professor at the College of Charleston.

"It inundates roads, and it ends up reaching the point where you become isolated little sea island communities," he said.