Hurricane Ian: A ‘generational storm.’ Is it time to panic? | Commentary
I fashion myself as a pretty level-headed guy who doesn’t freak out much about storms.
Gimme a bottle of bourbon and a bag of Funyuns, and I’m set.
However, after studying the latest spaghetti models and barometric readings, I’m beginning to think: Now may be the time to panic.
Ian looks like a powerful storm that is about to fuel up on the warm waters of the Gulf to become even more powerful.
After a bunch of near misses, it looks like Florida’s number is up.
If only Ron DeSantis could send Ian to Martha’s Vineyard.
Still, before everybody works themselves into Category 5 anxiety, I decided to reach out to one of Central Florida’s most veteran weather experts — Tom Sorrells, the calm, cool and collected chief meteorologist at WKMG-Channel 6 — to see where we should set our panic dials.
“Never panic,” Tom responded. “But prepare today.”
See? That’s why I like Tom. Calm, thoughtful, practical.
But then Tom continued:
“I would tell your readers that Wednesday night into Thursday morning could end up being one of the worst weather events they’ve ever seen.”
OK, so now Tom was cranking up my panic dial. Even more so when he said: “This looks like a dangerous, damaging, generational storm.”
Generational and storm are two words you never want to hear together. Kinda like abnormal and rash.
Tom said Ian struck him as “a Charley-meets-Frances hybrid, a strong hurricane that strikes the coast, then slowly moves over Central Florida.”
Personally, I don’t like the idea of a Charley-meets-anything hybrid. Because Charley took out our power and most of our roofs.
If there’s any solace for Central Florida, it looks like wind speeds from Ian could be less here than what we saw with Charley. But everything is changing by the three-hour update.
A wobble here or a zag there or could be the difference between landfall at Tampa or Fort Myers, between the eye of the storm passing over Orlando or Clewiston.
Regardless, it seems safe to say that most of the peninsula’s midriff is going to be affected.
So I’m with Tom. It’s time to get our assets in gear — without panicking.
Take water, for instance. Before anyone starts throwing elbows in Sam’s Club over that last pallet of bottled water, remember that there’s another way to get clean water before a storm hits — from your tap.
Fill plastic bottles with tap water and put them in the freezer. Not only will you have water, you’ll have more ice to keep your rump roast chilled longer if power goes out.
Also, you don’t need to drain your pool much, if at all. Pre-storm pool draining is so popular in Florida that it’s practically a Sunshine State urban legend. But most experts point out that it doesn’t really do much. (Think about it: If you don’t lower your pool, it’s pretty much just like any other covered surface in your backyard.)
And if you lower the water levels too much, it can actually cause “extreme damage,” said Heath Spore, the owner of Pinch-a-Penny in Winter Park, who noted that draining too much water can reduce the water weight so much that pressure from the ground water below can push up, causing the pool to “pop.” “It’s ugly and frightfully expensive to repair,” Spore said.
The overall point: Be prepared, but don’t freak out and overdo it.
If you want to do something smart in advance, make sure you know your neighbors. Know who could help you in a pinch. And maybe reach out yourself to those who might especially appreciate your help — the single parents or elderly neighbors.
We all know we’re going to have inconveniences. On Tuesday morning, when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, our internet temporarily went on the blink, as it often does for absolutely no reason.
I felt like it was basically Spectrum giving me a heads-up confessional, saying: C’mon, pal. We all know how this is going to go.
Really, though, if the only problem we’re facing 48 hours from now is glitchy internet, we’ll consider ourselves lucky.
So let’s be ready.
Sorrells noted that, while this storm looks bad, “Every hurricane is different.”
So let’s be ready, no matter what comes our way. Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst. And we’ll all see each other on the other side. I’ll bring the Funyuns.
