Tampa’s vulnerability to Milton
The mayor of Tampa was quite blunt about it:
[Mayor] Castor noted that many Floridians are already leaving the area. For those trying to stay home, she urged them to reconsider.
“They may have done that in others,” Castor said, referring to Floridians riding out previous storms. “There’s never been one like this.”
“Helene was a wake-up call. This is literally catastrophic, and I can say without any dramatization whatsoever: If you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you’re going to die,” she continued.
Sometimes hurricanes are overhyped, which creates a “boy who cried wolf” mentality in residents. This time, though, the danger does seem very stark, and what happened with Helene will probably make people pay very serious attention.
Why is Tampa so vulnerable? The answer is rather simple:
The city is especially susceptible to hurricane damage due to its low-lying topography. …
While the city has survived other tropical storms over the years, Hurricane Milton, a category 5 storm which is set to make landfall in Florida on Wednesday, is concerning because Tampa is vulnerable to storm surges due to its shallow waters. Milton’s storm surge is forecasted to raise water levels by eight to 12 feet in Tampa Bay, if peak surge happens during the high tide. …
The last hurricane to directly impact Tampa Bay was the Tarpon Springs Hurricane of 1921. As a Category 3 storm, it caused eight deaths, an 11-foot surge and cost $10 million in damages (worth nearly $180 million today when accounting for inflation).
That seems a lot less serious than what is forecasted for Milton.
The heightened risk is partially a result of topography. The Gulf of Mexico coastline of Florida is shallow with a gentle, sloping shelf. The higher ocean floor acts as a barrier that retains the storm’s outflow of water, forcing the ocean to surge onto shore. That’s the opposite of Florida’s east coast, where the ocean floor drops suddenly a few miles from the coast.
“You can have the same storm, the same intensity, the same everything, but very different surges,” said Klotzbach.
A 2015 report from the Boston-based catastrophe modeling firm Karen Clark and Co. concluded that Tampa Bay is the most vulnerable place in the U.S. to storm surge flooding from a hurricane and stands to lose $175 billion in damage. …
“It’s a huge population. It’s very exposed, very inexperienced and that’s a losing proposition,” Emanuel, who has studied hurricanes for 40 years, said. “I always thought Tampa would be the city to worry about most.”
Considering everything, Tampa has been rather lucky in regard to hurricanes till now.
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Yep, Tampa has been a kind of doughnut hole heretofore, winning the skirting trophy time after time. Not looking good at all this time around.
18Z spaghetti models out. Significant shift south with the northern most spaghetti at Bradenton, and the southern most at Port Charlotte. IF (big IF), they hold this shift, much less surge for Tampa, but bad news for Ft Meyers and Naples still recovering from Ian. Model tracks tend to windshield wiper until close to landfall. Fingers crossed for Tampa, but pray for cities to the south.
https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/storminfo/#14L
Hey! Knock it off with the calling for hell to come down on my head, thanks! Don’t need! (I keed, I keed, but only halfway)
Believe it was physicsguy who gave out the Mike’s Weather Page (MWP) link. Apparently just a normal dude who knows a lot about hurricanes.
Was thinking today that the Milton may turn out as a wet dud…slow, changing speeds, changing landfall time, etc. News media is definitely hyping it for all it’s worth (as neo suggests – “Sometimes hurricanes are overhyped”). Then – I visited MWP for the “Daily Brew”…Jeez!?
Yes, it may weaken considerable…but, it has also sucked lots of moisture from another weather ‘Thingie, had an eye-wall replacement that can be unpredictable, and around 16:22 he gets into Milton heading into very warm waters—something it hasn’t had so far, and Mike asks “How did it get so strong?”
Anyway, Mike says if a hurricane weakens people complain about the terrible forecast that was made, etc. and basically says better safe than sorry…
Yes Tampa has been lucky with hurricanes, not so lucky with Mayor Lockdown. But really in luck with consultants who could use a little more money right now. Category 5 two days away and on track to be a 2 or 3 when it makes landfall.
IF the eye of this thing goes into Tampa Bay, all the dire forecasts will be proven accurate. If it moves slightly south, bad news for Bradenton and Sarasota and Venice. The weather people would be seriously remiss NOT to issue these warnings, even if Tampa Bay survives yet again.
Check out the pix at Not The Bee, and don’t miss the final tweet.
https://notthebee.com/article/check-out-these-aerial-shots-of-milton-from-orbit-and-an-update-on-what-to-expect-when-the-hurricane-makes-landfall
How good is Florida’s preparation? This good.
“Highways heading north remain packed, as do airports, as people evacuate en masse. Gov. DeSantis has been using law enforcement and convoys of fuel trucks to ensure that traffic continues to move.
…
Meanwhile, workers are moving rapidly to secure vulnerable locations such as the Tampa General Hospital and the Central Florida Zoo.”
Not wanting to discourage anyone in Florida, but this is what FEMA calls “helping.”
https://notthebee.com/article/government-sends-electric-chainsaws-to-community-without-electricity
Sometimes the Bee is scary.
https://babylonbee.com/news/fema-warns-they-dont-have-the-resources-to-block-humanitarian-aid-for-next-hurricane
… Because this is a story that popped up today.
https://redstate.com/jenniferoo/2024/10/08/brian-trascher-of-united-cajun-navy-confirms-blackhawk-the-rotor-wash-incident-at-a-nc-resource-site-n2180276
It’s a good idea to stay open-minded about stories like this, but right now the track record for the administration is not helping reduce suspicion.
Aesopfan,
Did they send portable electric generators too? Anyone nearby have any either?
I could wish public officials would refrain from predicting that “anyone remaining will certainly die.” So matter how horrific the landfall, that’s almost never true. It’s surprisingly difficult to kill people. But there’s no doubt that, instead of a very small handful of unlucky people being killed by a tree falling or a building collapsing, there will be a shocking death toll if too many people underestimate the meaning of a 15-foot storm surge in a low-lying area. It won’t be a majority of the hardy souls who stayed behind, but it will be a lot of unnecessary deaths.
Every time a mayor says “You’re all going to die,” and most survive, people are less likely to pay attention the next time. A mayor in my county tried that on us, and my county suffered no deaths indisputably resulting from the quite severe storm–maybe one guy who probably would have made it to a hospital and possibly survived his unrelated health crisis in better weather. Credibility is important in an emergency and shouldn’t be squandered in this way. On the other hand, I think most of us underestimated the physical toll of the storm and the years it would take to recover from that, which suggests that we’d all do well to take storm prep and insurance more seriously.
Tampa native. An area of significant charm, and serious vulnerability.
Tampa has been brushed a couple of time recently, but was fortunate.
Praying for loved ones. It is a strange situation to hope that this will turn slightly away, knowing that only means that strangers will absorb the disaster.
My sister is somewhere in that traffic melee heading North. Like many senior citizens in Florida she lives in vulnerable housing. I hope that she has one to return to.
Collectively, we at times we have a certain level of arrogance that our technological advances protect us. Periodically we are forcefully reminded that we are so vulnerable when natural forces mount their fury. Defensive preparations seem so feeble. Run.
At best, we hope that the people with authority and responsibility do their jobs; and that altruistic organizations and people are motivated and mobilized to help recover in the aftermath.
I could wish public officials would refrain from predicting that “anyone remaining will certainly die.” So matter how horrific the landfall, that’s almost never true.
Wendy+Laubach:
I think you make good points.
Katrina was plenty horrific. Then the levees broke. But most people who remained survived. Those that didn’t were unlucky, elderly or disabled.
After the storm surge subsided, one could leave the refuge of the Superdome and wade back to much of the city. It wasn’t like being trapped in the Mad Max Thunderdome as portrayed in most of the media then.
I don’t mean to dismiss legitimate concerns — not to mention the criminal incompetence of city and state officials — but a disaster hurricane is not going to kill everyone.
So we enter the shades-of-gray world of falsely alarming people to save lives or telling the truth and letting people make their own decisions, even at the cost of lives.
I’m a fan of personal responsibility.
@ Joe > “Did they send portable electric generators too? Anyone nearby have any either?”
The story didn’t say, but maybe they did.
I guess that would work as well as this would.
https://media.notthebee.com/articles/article-6705684159944.jpg
The helicopter rotor wash incident was an NC National Guard helicopter. The crew has been grounded. It seems to have been a mistake, not intentional.
https://www.cbs17.com/news/north-carolina-news/nc-national-guard-black-hawk-crew-grounded-after-rotor-wash-incident-over-helene-aid/
With a huge storm surge expected along the coast, authorities are right to warn people that staying within a mile or two of the beach may be catastrophic. For inland places, “You’re all going to die” is, ahem, overkill. But some people inland will die.
I’ve gotten a bit of a perspective here in Tampa Bay from my sister, a long term local government official. She is now angry at De Santis (naturally she is a rabid TDS Democrat) over debris removal. The city where she is in charge of such things, not on the Gulf waterfront, had a bit of damage from Helene — a lot of downed branches. People piled these on the curb. But rather than the normal sanitation workers picking them up, it was decided that FEMA should pay. Apparently FEMA requires a lot of documentation and red tape, and private contractors are used. To get the contractors all lined up and their bids approved naturally takes a bit of time, and when Milton hove into view and the danger of flying debris became an problem, the piles were still there.
De Santis made this an issue and her potential contractors apparently took off for the more severely affected beach areas (and a photo op). But it illuminated for me how FEMA distorts things. The debris in this case could have been picked up in the normal way (as it was in my adjacent town — two days later there was little evidence of Helene). But FEMA provides windfall money for the city, delaying clean up, and most important of all, acting as a patronage mill. Using the ordinary city workers doesn’t expand Federal clientalism.
Of course, as someone noted above, FEMA hauling contracts could be vital when local government is overwhelmed. But this was not the case here — just holding out for “free” money, and maybe not incidentally keeping the evidence of the storm damage around (Climate Change!) far longer than necessary.
Of course, we’ll see what develops now…
FEMA does operate as a patronage mill, sadly. And the help moves very slowly. There are people in eastern NC, apparently unable to take care of it themselves, still waiting for full repairs two years after the hurricane which caused the damage.
This morning’s 12Z spaghetti tracks have become very consistent with a very narrow spread from Sarasota to Port Charlotte. Tampa may be spared the devastating surge. Port Charlotte south will see the most surge. Of course, small changes of just 10 miles at landfall can really change the surge issue. Official forecast for Tampa is still 8-12 feet, which I understand given the possibility of a 20 mile shift in track.
Intensity down to Cat 3 at landfall by models. Satellite this morning shows a ragged eye with an asymmetry with most convection to the east. Possible drier air and shear coming in to the storm from the west….all better news if continues.
https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/storminfo/#14L
I like Tampa. A few years ago I attended a CENTCOM conference in Tampa, where Central Command is headquartered. This was in February, and it was cool enough where we had to wear jackets. I was especially impressed with the all the Cuban-owned cigar shops selling real Cuban cigars. Although I had quit cigars I did, on the occasion of my visit, treat myself to a couple of absolutely delicious stogies, sold by very charming, patriotic Cuban immigrants. I was further impressed by the fact that smoking cigars was permitted in bars. What a civilized place. When I returned home I briefly discussed with Mrs. Otter the possibility of relocating to Tampa. But, alas, it could not be: we both had jobs and family in Chicago. So we relocated to northwest Indiana (aka “The Region”) instead. Which is a very nice place in its own right. But I still like Tampa. I hope it makes it through the storm with minimal damage.
IO,
My introduction to the area was when my oldest decided to go to Eckerd College. Downtown St Pete is marvelous. And the beaches are/were wonderful.
Favorite place to stay was the Magnuson whcih sits right on the bay. Hope it, and the College survive.
High Tide for St. Pete is around 6:00 am, which means that the tide will be coming in as Milton makes landfall. Not good — adds to the hight of the storm surge. Downtown Tampa and the Davis islands will be in bad shape, but St. Pete is on the Gulf and should be subject to higher storm surges. The worst hit of Tampa should be that peninsula that houses MacDill AF Base.
Bradenton and Sarasota (especially Bradenton Beach and Longboat Key) are really screwed — the right front quadrant is supposed to be the worst for a hurricane, and they are right in the path of Milton’s right front quadrant. (The right front quadrant carries higher winds, waves, and storm surge.)
A facebook friend lives near there and still hasn’t finished cleaning up from Helene. And only jus finished cleaning up from, (I think it was) Debbie. He had a store. Insurance is being canceled because of Helene. He is so screwed. And I am sure he is by far not the only one.
@ Kate > “It seems to have been a mistake, not intentional.”
Thanks for the update; a mistake does just as much damage, though.
It’s sad that we can even entertain intentionality as a possibility, but that’s the position that highly levels of government malfeasance have put us in.
There is still the question of why the chopper pilot didn’t realize he was too close to the ground, and that he didn’t have the right conditions for delivering the generators to that location (and IF that was where they were supposed to be dropped).
That’s what investigations are for, but it’s an unnecessary distraction.
Here’s another story on how FEMA red tape is tying up operations.
I don’t fault the official sending the letter requiring pre-approval to get later reimbursement. I’m sure that’s a FEMA rule, and I can see why it’s usually a good one, but as the sheriff said, “Bureaucracy often interrupts people’s lives, but it should never cost people their lives.”
https://www.cbs17.com/news/local-news/nc-sheriff-demands-county-manager-resign-over-red-tape-linked-to-helene-relief-efforts/
The local news affiliate has more updates on other early claims — which doesn’t definitively establish that the claims are wrong, just that they have been acknowledged and objected to (which also is not the same as “refuting”).
I’ve also excerpted a few details showing some aspects of the disaster.
The pictures are devastating.
https://www.cbs17.com/news/north-carolina-news/stunning-tales-emerge-of-chimney-rock-flooding-officials-refute-bodies-everywhere-rumor-vow-to-rebuild/
More videos.
https://www.cbs17.com/news/north-carolina-news/aerial-tour-shows-helene-destruction-in-chimney-rock-marshall-and-biltmore-village/
Perhaps the remark about everybody who fails to evacuate will die is a liability issue. No liability for failing to send rescue efforts.
@ Richard > “No liability for failing to send rescue efforts.”
Scroll down, it’s a “live feed” post.
13:44 Sarasota 911 is on the verge of shutting down
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13941169/hurricane-milton-path-tracker-tampa.html