Hurricanes don't move very fast, and this one is moving slower than most.
CD
Yep, it's down to forward motion of 5 MPH now. Bad though that eye is still intact, which is really, really bad in and of itself.
We went down to South Dade County and also over to Florida's west coast after Andrew and Charlie respectively hit. It was awful. Buildings were just gone, down to the concrete slabs they were built on. Landscape was totally changed, wiped clean in many places. It's very humbling and scary seeing what Mother Nature can do. Andrew was the strongest hurricane to hit mainland in recent history. It was awful when Andrew hit where we lived, which was about 45 miles from where center hit the land. That was a REALLY long night and Andrew moved relatively fast. A coworker lived close to where center hit and it was hell for them. They, him, his wife and 2 small kids, ended up in a bathroom with a mattress against the door, with my co-worker bracing against the mattress to keep the bathroom door from opening for a couple of hours. Our front door, about 45 miles away, was vibrating so bad that Craig went and got some 2x4s out of the garage and put them across the door to make sure it didn't fly open.
Charlie hit the west coast where Craig's brothers lived at the time. We were at a trade show in Daytona beach (east coast) at the time. Charlie cut across the state, hitting where Craig's brother's lived and exiting through Daytona. That was a fun night in a high rise hotel on the beach with a bunch of drunken out of staters who thought it was an excuse to party. I'll never forget. I had gotten a migraine from the stress and had taken some medicine and fell asleep. The hotel's speaker system woke me up telling people to please come down from the upper floors, we were on 12, and gather in the conference rooms. Craig was sitting in a chair watching the TV. I set up with my back against the headboard of the bed. After a couple of minutes, don't forget I was a bit drugged up, I told Craig the headboard was vibrating. He didn't believe me, thought it was the drugs, and checked for himself. We went downstairs for several hours until worst of storm passed. Blown in windows, saturated carpets, very limited food service, no hot water, idiots standing out in the porte cochere of the hotel to see the weather, minimal electricity, no elevator service because they didn't want anybody to get stuck in case power went out totally, etc, etc, and a-holes who were trying to get out of paying ANY part of their hotel bill because of a weather event when we went to check out. Worst was phone service was extremely spotty and it took us a day and a half to speak to Craig's brothers and find out they were okay, though his eldest brother's home was pretty much destroyed. He had gone to the middle brother's home because his home was very close to the coast.
