2020 Atlantic Hurricane Season Running Thread

Read John D. Macdonald's Travis McGee books. He was calling out the state of Florida in the early '60s for the ecological mess they were creating long before anyone else.

 

Completely agree.

Harry Crews was a lecturer when I was at UF. He believed the next big civil disturbance in our country was going to involve water distribution to the overpopulation taking place in Palm Beach, Broward and Dade counties. He felt that number of people (in 1977) was unsustainable, given the nature of fresh water flows from the Everglades -- and he had zero confidence in water management.

And it's only gotten worse since then.

 

Cone update, and it’s heading for the Gulf.

 

I just want to say, I’m here for the #sjfla talk.

I don’t miss Florida (well, I miss Tallahassee) very often. But I do miss the “train wreck” of it all. I get so much street cred in the Midwest for being from Florida. Makes me exotic.

 

I was just coming to post this update, and yes, I am being selfish when I prefer models like this to ones where it could ride the Gulf Stream north.

 

I'm a four-time Florida Man. 1960, 1968, 1976, 1986. (Hey, there's an odd pattern of sixes there.)

We could really have a blast on a separate "Florida Man/Florida Woman" thread. Speaking of your town, I got shot towards during the night of the Palm Bay Massacre when William Cruse fired out the back of the Publix at the police cars (and where I parked to do radio reports). That's the time the radio station manager cussed me out for getting his news van in danger.

 

Still tracking the entire way as a tropical storm. That's interesting, particularly since that's pretty warm water it's going to pass through. Stay that way, come on up to Georgia and knock this stupid dome of high pressure out of the way, please.

 

I had just turned 5 then and don’t remember anything related to it, but from what I’ve been told, we had just left the Winn Dixie across Babcock Street (and where he later took hostages). I do recall that we lived at the trailer park along Robert J. Conlan, just west of the Florida East Coast Railroad and US 1 at the time, so it makes sense we’d be shopping there on a Friday after my mom got off work and picked me up from my grandparents house in Crown Heights near Palm Bay High.

 

Palm Bay in those days was a bunch of two-lane roads with scattered houses. Largest city by area but not many residents.

Because I lived only two miles from WMEL, I raced to the station, grabbed the van and got as far as a Firestone on Palm Bay Road just west of the shopping center, where all the backup cops (mostly county deputies) were set up. So I parked the van with them and was on live when I heard bullets whizzing and police behind their doors and fenders. The only thing in the van that looked like it might deflect bullets was the spare tire, so I hunched down behind it.

Interesting that the people who got me jail time here are named Crews. I really need to think twice about going to another Tom Cruise movie.

 

Too much land interaction with Hispaniola, Cuba and Florida itself to let it strengthen on that path.

But the constant westward shift of the path looks a lot like Ivan, which makes me act like Susan Collins.

 

My Florida man claim to fame involves being detained by police four times on three consecutive Saturdays in Jan-Feb 1990 (Orlando, Winter Place, Daytona x2) and another in July 1991 (state police) without being arrested.
Oh, and I was in Hurricane Hugo there, too.

 

Sorry to say my grandpa was a loyal WMMB listener.

Your description of a Palm Bay is on-point. Still an unusual place, but now a sprawling 115,000 bedroom community spread over 100 square miles of scrub and pine forest. I rarely go back, but my folks still live there and my mom works at City Hall. They just prefer to visit Kansas City. Hard to blame them.