Hurricane surge

[Barking Sands]

Dock power is off. But I recently added the Victron MP2 and plenty of lithium. Also have Verizon home internet that takes very little juice. And finally added Zumimal pan/zoom wifi cameras. Currently pulling 6.5 amps out of the 920ah bank. Plenty of capacity.

So because of this I can monitor the boat via cam and wifi as well as electrical situation.
Location is Tarpon Springs.

Current situation:

May have another foot or two to go.

 

[mvweebles]

Location would help.

I see your pedestal is either pretty short or under 3-feet of water

Not looking good for our place in Madeira Beach. We're flying back from Mexico on Saturday. Drywall knife in hand....

Peter

 

[Blissboat]

Location would help.

Peter

Ditto. I regret that the new TF seems to have eliminated subscribers' location info. It's easy enough to re-enter in your profile, but that does seem to require a little self-awareness and affirmative action.

 

[Barking Sands]

Yes...Tarpon Springs very close to sponge docks.

 

[Barking Sands]

Location would help.

I see your pedestal is either pretty short or under 3-feet of water

Not looking good for our place in Madeira Beach. We're flying back from Mexico on Saturday. Drywall knife in hand....

Peter

I think its close to cresting. Hopefully its just a bit of drywall and basic stuff. Crossing fingers.

 

[mvweebles]

I think its close to cresting. Hopefully its just a bit of drywall and basic stuff. Crossing fingers.

Good luck to you. Looks worse the further north you go. Our house is a 1950s cottage - slab on grade. We're thinking of moving a few miles inland to higher ground to avoid storms like this. We travel a lot and it's an unnecessary distraction.

Always enjoy your posts. Best wishes.

Peter

 

[Barking Sands]

Good luck to you. Looks worse the further north you go. Our house is a 1950s cottage - slab on grade. We're thinking of moving a few miles inland to higher ground to avoid storms like this. We travel a lot and it's an unnecessary distraction.

Always enjoy your posts. Best wishes.

Peter

It's definitely slowing. This latest is nearly an hour after the picture above and only gone up a few inches.

 

[jleonard]

Our friends who's house is 1/4 mile west of us in New Port Richey got flooded as did several of the neighbors on that street. They had 20 inches of water inside. I spent 4 hours yesterday shop vacuuming water out of the house. Going back in a few minutes to do more.
All of their furniture like chairs and sofas are soaked and likely ruined. Cabinets and bookshelves probably too warped to keep. Cabinet doors won't close either. Water was likely only inside for a very short time as it quickly receded.
Even their fridge floated and was wedged at an angle between cabinets and wall.
At least the water was clean, but being brackish, not sure if any of the appliances are worth trying to save.

 

[Blissboat]

In St. Petersburg Beach, all my friends had at least 2' of Boca Ciega Bay in their houses - even in the highest neighborhoods. Others had a lot more. It has never flooded that much there. As Peter said, it was worse the further north you look. The news from places like Cedar Key and Keaton Beach is awful.

For the west coast of Florida, Helene modeled nearly the worst-case scenario. The only thing I can think of that would have caused greater damage would have been if the storm had advanced at the more normal speed of 10-12 mph, instead of racing up the Gulf at 23 mph. A little slower rate of advance and a little closer to the west coast of the peninsula, and it could have been the perfect storm, so to speak.

For the perpetual critics who suspect that Florida boaters are negligent, take a look at the chart and the forecast track, and tell us where you would have repositioned your boat between Monday and Wednesday while simultaneously securing your home and business, and evacuating your family. As Ted noted, the Caloosahatchee River would have been about the only play, assuming you could beat the rush and get to Ft. Myers in time.

 

[rslifkin]

For the perpetual critics who suspect that Florida boaters are negligent, take a look at the chart and the forecast track, and tell us where you would have repositioned your boat between Monday and Wednesday while simultaneously securing your home and business, and evacuating your family. As Ted noted, the Caloosahatchee River would have been about the only play, assuming you could beat the rush and get to Ft. Myers in time.

The big thing it makes me wonder about is why aren't marinas there built better? Floating docks, taller pilings to handle surge, good protection from sea state, etc.

Prior to me having it, my boat rode out Sandy on Long Island Sound in a marina. The biggest concern for losing the boat was whether the surge would hit at high tide and be big enough to lift the docks off the pilings. As it happened, peak surge was at less than high tide and there was still a couple feet of piling left. A couple of boats suffered wind induced damage, but for the most part, everyone made it through intact as the docks were able to keep the boats in position (and being floating docks means no really slack lines to allow everything to move around and build big shock loads, not enough slack for boats to bang together, etc.).

 

[Hippocampus]

Have wondered about what could be done to mitigate boat loss or damage from storms or hurricanes in Florida.
Have had boats weather intact storms and one hurricane. They were on hurricane rated moorings with anything taken down that could add to windage. They were in harbors of refuge so behind significant breakwaters and surrounding land was higher than the harbor.
Boats were secured with bridle to both bow cleats, additional snubbers to cleats between bow and midship and line around base of the mast. All protected with chafe gear. Mooring chain long enough to allow storm surge. Attached to a screw not a weight.
Floating docks would work but only if pilings were higher than any possible expected surge. Now with more 100y events from MMCC that may not be the case. Believe storm moorings unlike slips have the advantage the boat is always oriented bow on whereas in a slip you maybe beam on.
Unfortunately you can get a lot more boats in a much smaller area with slips than moorings. But think even those of us outside high risk areas will see a further jump in insurance premiums and insurance in high risk areas will jump even further and be limited in availability. Think even the most diligent Florida boater is at risk from the absence of appropriate infrastructure and possibility of meaningful repositioning. Most have a home to worry about as well as repositioning themselves. It would be up to marinas and local agencies to rethink and provide infrastructure that’s more resilient to our new reality going forward. Have Floridian friends. They sold their boat last month. But still had home damage. Now thinking of bugging out of Florida altogether. Borne and raised in Florida. Very upset how things have changed.

 

[rslifkin]

Floating docks would work but only if pilings were higher than any possible expected surge

Agreed. In my mind, there's no reason not to install extra-tall pilings when building a marina with floating docks though. A large portion of the cost is in physically installing the pilings and the cost of good, sturdy docks. The incremental cost of making the pilings a few feet taller can't be that high.