28 thoughts on “Landfall”

  1. schadenfreude anyone? demunderground reprinted this from

    Miami Herald
    Hurricane Dorian is headed for Florida, and President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago and Trump Doral resorts in South Florida are within reach of the path that the National Weather Service was predicting Thursday evening.
    The hurricane is projected to make landfall Monday afternoon as a Category 4 storm, and Gov. Ron DeSantis has declared a state of emergency in Florida. Thursday evening, Melbourne was at the center of the forecast cone. Mar-a-Lago is in Palm Beach, roughly 100 miles south of Melbourne. Trump Doral is about 180 miles south of Melbourne.
    All employees of Mar-a-Lago aside from security have been sent home until the hurricane passes, a representative said. The club is currently closed until October for the off-season. At Trump Doral, pools and other amenities are closed while generators have been put in place to supply power if needed, a representative said.

  2. rawstory:

    With Hurricane Dorian bearing down on South Florida and posing a severe risk to locals, one thing that has been noted is that President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago country club is among the many properties at risk from the storm. A few anti-Trump commentators have even taken this as the silver lining of the whole disaster, with former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell saying that she’s “rooting for a direct hit.”
    But if you are consumed with schadenfreude at the idea of Mar-a-Lago underwater, there is something you should know: The federal government will be stuck with the bill if it does.
    That’s because, according to a 2017 investigation by the Huffington Post in the run-up to Hurricane Irma, Mar-a-Lago is covered by the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which provides federally subsidized flood insurance at steep discounts to properties at risk of flooding.
    The NFIP’s main purpose is to mitigate disaster relief aid costs for the federal government. But it has frequently been criticized for its financially unsound structure and its lack of means testing.

  3. NYTimes this morning:

    A strike by Dorian in a densely populated region could be especially dangerous, said W. Craig Fugate, a former administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
    He rattled off a list of Florida cities — Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Jacksonville — where, he said, storm surge could be deadly “once you start measuring in feet, not inches.”
    “That’s not saying it won’t be devastating wherever it hits the shore,” said Mr. Fugate, who is also a former director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management. “But the reality is: What drives the response is people.”
    Orlando is inland in Central Florida, but if the storm dumps rain for many hours, the city’s lakes could overflow. In North Florida, the St. Johns and Matanzas Rivers have flooded Jacksonville and St. Augustine even when storms have not directly hit the cities, Mr. Fugate noted.
    He also laid out other concerns.
    Expensive installations along the flourishing Space Coast, around Cape Canaveral, could be affected. Fuel shipments could be delayed by any disruptions at major hubs for cargo such as Jaxport in Jacksonville or Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale.
    Powerful waves in Lake Okeechobee, Florida’s largest inland lake, could test its aging dike. Pounding rains might force the release of polluted waters into fragile estuaries to the east and west, which could lead to toxic algae blooms.
    “What we’ve always encouraged in Florida is catastrophic disaster planning,” Mr. Fugate said.

    [continues]

  6. Hmmm, in planning a Labor Day trip I’m wondering whether it would be better to go to Daytona for one last weekend at the beach or Arizona.  I’m thinking dry heat might be better.  Joking aside, I hope the central FL residents have the good sense to head north, and do so earlier rather than later.  

  7. Me thinks it would be socially irresponsible if I were to head to Myrtle Beach, take a suite for the weekend, thereby removing it as space for evacuees.

  8. Craig…  you got out of there just in time.  Hoping all will be well with your father and any friends down there.  Thinking of Tony, Purple in Tampa, and Me 168.  May everyone stay safe.
     
    Bink…  I’m so glad you grace this blog.

  9. Yes RR, Dad and I discussed yesterday how relieved we are not to own property anymore. And we confirmed yesterday with the director of his facility that they have generators. We were lucky through the years, never had a catastrophe, just power outages and lots of annoying debris to deal with. 

  10. So glad we no longer spend the last two weeks in August in North Carolina at the beach — too many hours spent in evacuation lines on two lane highways

  11. Flatus,  If Mar-a-lago is spared because Dorain slides a scosh north it wouldn’t surprise me if evacuees (hell, vacationers, too) who chose Myrtle Beach won’t be asking themselves why the hell they thought going to MB was a good idea.  Coastal flooding is such a pleasant experience after all.

  12. I know a hurricane is barrel assing toward Florida…   and I know that atrocities are happening here and all over the world.  But…  it’s Friday…  let’s have a little pick me up…

  13. craig, they must have heard your caution about the phones.

    NYTimes:

    WASHINGTON — The Democratic National Committee is preparing to block Iowa Democrats’ plans to allow some caucusgoers to vote by phone next year, bowing to security concerns about the process being hacked, according to four people with knowledge of the decision.
    The committee’s announcement, expected to come by Friday afternoon in the form of a recommendation to the party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee, serves as a major setback to Democrats who have long hoped to expand the caucus-state electorate beyond those voters able to attend a winter-night gathering for several hours.
    The Iowa Democrats’ plan would have allowed voters not attending a traditional caucus to register their preference during one of six “virtual caucuses” over the phone. But D.N.C. security officials told the rules committee at a closed-door session in San Francisco last week that they had “no confidence” such a system could remain safe from hostile hackers.
    The D.N.C.’s leadership concluded that the technology that exists is not secure and poses too large a risk of interference from a foreign adversary, according to officials with knowledge of the deliberations. Several presidential campaigns expressed concern to top party officials that Iowa’s results could be compromised, people familiar with the discussions said Thursday.
    The Rules and Bylaws Committee has the power to approve state plans for primaries and caucuses.

    [continues]

  14. It’s probably wishful thinking, but the model on the Weather Channel page look slike Palm Beach is right in the middle of the cone of uncertainty.  I can only hope…

  17. pogo, palm beach daily news seems to think it’s coming there too:

    When Hurricane Dorian’s projected path shifted a bit to the south overnight, its center-line track appeared Friday to put Palm Beach — and President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago — in its crosshairs.
    Although forecasters have cautioned that it’s still too early pinpoint exactly where on Florida’s east coast the potentially fierce storm will strike, the shifted track has renewed attention on the mansion-turned-private club, known to many as Trump’s “winter White House.” Trump, as president, has visited the property two dozen times in the winter season and has hosted high-level meetings with world leaders there.
    The historic house, built in 1927, stands on 17.5 acres stretching between the Atlantic Ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway. If Dorian comes ashore in or near Palm Beach as a Category 4 storm, as the National Hurricane Center has predicted, Mar-a-Lago and other oceanfront homes could be hit with the storm’s full wrath.
    The club’s location hasn’t been ignored this week on social media. On Wednesday, former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell tweeted: “I’m rooting for a direct hit on Mar a Lago!”
    On Thursday, she explained that the tweet was related to “Trump’s climate change denial.”

    […]

    One of Campbell’s tweets on Wednesday referenced cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post, who built the mansion with her then husband, stockbroker E.F. Hutton.
    “Well, we will see if Mrs. Post’s design can stand up to the assault! I know Palm Beach well and am sorry if it gets a big hit,” Campbell’s tweet said.
    Campbell later on Thursday tweeted: “And no, I don’t wish anyone, anywhere, the horror of being hit by a Category 4 Hurricane. But not everyone can have the protection of a fortress like Mar a Lago, built to be hurricane-proof! Trump will not bear the cost of his immoral abdication of the climate change.”
    Forecasters still aren’t sure when Hurricane Dorian will reach Florida’s coastline. The hurricane center’s 11 a.m. update Friday said the storm most likely would make landfall late Sunday. The center-line track targeted Palm Beach and Martin counties.
    Mar-a-Lago has weathered any number of hurricanes and windstorms in the decades since it was built.

    [continues]

  19. another storm abrewing in trumpland from wapo:

    Let’s walk through what the Fox News host said, which came in response to a Trump tweet urging people to ditch Fox because it’s not “working for us anymore.” Below is the monologue in its entirety, with analysis sprinkled in:

     

    CAVUTO: All right, well, I think the president watches Fox.

    I also think he is getting sick of Fox, which is weird because I think he gets pretty fair coverage at Fox. But the president making clear to fact-check him is to be all but dead to him and his legion of supporters, who let me know in no uncertain terms I am either with him totally, or I am a never-Trumper fully.

    There are no grays, no middle ground. You’re either all-in or you’re just out; loyal on everything or not to be trusted on anything.

    […]

    Trump seems to believe Fox’s polls should be better for him than those from other outlets, which just isn’t how this works.

     

    CAVUTO: Which could explain the president himself this week bashing Fox News yet again, urging his supporters to stop watching the channel, to quote tweet: “Fox isn’t working for us anymore.”

    Well, first of all, Mr. President, we don’t work for you. I don’t work for you. My job is to cover you, not fawn over you or rip you — just report on you, to call balls and strikes on you.

    My job, Mr. President — our job — here is to keep the score. It’s not settle scores. Now, in my case, to report the economic numbers when they’re good and when they’re bad, when the markets are soaring and when they’re tumbling, when trade talks look like they’re coming together and when they look like they’re falling apart. It is called being fair and balanced, Mr. President.

    Yet it is fair to say you’re not a fan when that balance includes stuff you don’t like to hear or facts you don’t like to have questioned.

    [continues]

     

  21. Thanks, RR.

    CC- do you still have attachments in FL or are you a passive observer for this hurricane?  Just wondering.

    Pogo- you’re frustrations in dealing with, shall we say, “right-of-center” folk are noted and shared. i’ll concede one can’t reach them all, but remember, just because someone vociferously resists a challenge to their assumptions in the moment doesn’t mean a seed isn’t planted in their mind that may bear fruit, someday.

  23. Tampa Bay trying to beat Cleveland; Indians won’t have it. Next match is against Trump’s Border Patrol.

  24. If a “Mr. Roger” shows up claiming “Jamie Sent Me”.  Be nice, we don’t want a nice man scared off by the natives. 

  25. Bink, you gotta meet these guys to understand how futile discussion is… but it doesn’t stop me. I don’t necessarily mind it when morons think I’m an idiot. I don’t engage in lengthy arguments with them though. Can’t stand to hear SFB bs talking points spouted as if they are well reasoned argument. 
    Jack, just watched Tom Petty concert in Gatorland with the Heartbreakers and backup singer Stevie Nicks. Really great concert. 

  26. Yeah, Mr Bink,
    After all, we’re discussing the eldritch batrachian figures that worship Cthulu. These obscene toadies aren’t going to rise in the Senate and tootle against trump on their blasphemous flutes. I wish I could provide a happier prognosis. Unless some unlooked-for Great Old One can rob the Orange horror of its hideous power within 14 1/4 months, I fear that the numberless myrmidons of the degenerate genepool will only continue to flout their soul-sickening music until January 20, 2020. 

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