This Week on the Island 11/08/2020

 

‘This Week on the Island’ is written by Doug Bennett and is an update to friends about happenings in Key West last week. Everything is true except for those parts that are lies.

The Weather: Lots of it!

This week is all about the weather and HURRICANES.

A hurricane is a low-pressure storm. It rotates counter-clockwise. If a hurricane is 400 miles across and it is moving at 10 miles a hour, it will take 40 hours to move over your position. Since it moves so slowly, we get weathers updates more often than we would like and long before we care about them or we have lost power and don’t have a clue as to what is happening.

The outer winds from a hurricane are mild and become stronger as you move toward the center (eye) of the hurricane. Everything is getting blown in one direction. When the eye passes, it is very calm. Then the hurricane hits with all its might from the opposite direction. This sudden change in direction snaps trees and blows down houses.

The other area of a hurricane that is very dangerous is the front right corner. If Hurricane ETA goes toward Miami, we will be on the ‘good’ side of the hurricane. If it turns toward the Gulf of Mexico we are in big trouble.

As Hurricane ETA crosses the 90 miles between Cuba and Key West (The Florida Straights) it will become stronger and start pushing the water. This high water will come up our street drains and start flooding the city and low-lying areas.

As the winds get stronger things will start to fly. Stay indoors and don’t look to see what all that noise is. It is your neighbor’s property, and maybe a coconut or two, bouncing off you house. If you go outside these things may bounce off you.

The worst of Hurricane ETA is supposed to get here at night. That makes it like a scary movie, they always happen at night. You can’t even see what is happening because it is too dark.

Now let’s add in the fact that high tide happens twice a day. So sometime during this storm the high tide will roll in and with the help of the hurricane wind and the higher water it brings, we are in for an interesting Sunday night.

Let’s not forget that all of our power and water come from the mainland that is almost 150 miles away. Sometime Sunday night we will lose both. So, it will be dark, hot, with the monster just outside the door. What an interesting life we live.

We leave you with Easy like Sunday morning.

Key West,

Close to Perfect, Far from Normal’

GDougBennett@att.net