Kenneth E Lamb says:

If the latest projected track plays out, Milton misses Tampa Bay by a – relatively speaking – pretty wide margin; enough to keep the eyewall out of Tampa Bay. The “historic surge” event vaporizes and Tampa Bay is drained out as it has before and you’ll be able to walk on the muddy bottom that is now exposed.

This also dramatically changes the rest of the surge threat. Forget Tampa Mayor Betty Castor’s unhinged, hysterical “you’ll die” screed. I’ve known Betty for 50 years, and she’s always been about as calm and collected as a nuclear bomb. Inducing panic is what’s kept her in some or another office that entire time.

While there’ll still be some surge in the bay, it’s likely to be less than Helene. I saw this effect while growing up and living in St. Petersburg until my early thirties writing for the St. Petersburg Times and remember walking to Davis Island from the seawall on the opposite side of the bay.

This all means a tremendous drop in the amount of damage from the hurricane. While I’m by no means minimizing the destruction because, in the Sarasota-Bradenton area, there will be plenty, I’m just trying to bring this event back down to Earth and put a lid on the wild-eyed pronouncements of “the end of life as we know it” that has swept through the ratings-hungry media and clicking eyeballs that what happened in the Gulf protends Milton’s damages.

Let me suggest a comparison to this “Cat 5 from Hell” that seemingly appeared from nowhere to terrify everyone.

It was Hurricane Opal, which because it hit just east of Pensacola in thinly populated NW Florida, America’s 125th largest market and not America’s Top 10 market as is the Tampa-St. Petersburg – Clearwater market, it’s likely you’ve never heard much about it if you’ve heard anything at all.

I was working for the Miami Herald living in Pensacola. Opal was barely a Cat 1 in the Bay of Campeche when we went to bed.

At 4 AM I got a call from my pastor telling me he was evaluating Jacksonville because Opal was – in less than 8 hours – now a Cat 5!

I called my editor at his home to tell him the news. He had been sound asleep and muttered, “Opal is a Cat 1.”

“Well, it’s a Cat 5 now!” I shot back.

“Well, you know the drill!” he said, handing me the assignment to chase another Gulf hurricane for the Herald.

The panic was unimaginable. I-10 was at a standstill; the Alabama State Patrol shut down the southbound lanes on I-65 turning it into a northbound travel only in all 4 lanes.

Opal traveled NNE hitting the area so quickly that thousands of people stuck in traffic ended up stuck in their vehicles as Opal blew over them.

I had no trouble thinking the same fate awaited all those people out on I-75, I-4, i-95, the Sunshine Parkway, every US highway, and Florida’s secondary state highways. Those roads are still bumper-to-bumper as I write this so there are perhaps thousands who are not out of the woods with Milton.

Fortunately, Opal had declined to a Cat 3 and made landfall about 30 miles east at Navarre Beach. There were the damages you’d expect: boats were thrown up onto seashore roads, massive power outages, and most interesting the wiping out of the concrete block homes on the beaches that Hurricane Erin initially washed away just a few months earlier that same season. It was the end of affordable beach housing and Pensacola Beach’s quaint retro 1950s culture forever.

My point is this: you never know what a hurricane will do until it arrives. If the beach dwellers had lingered when Erin and Opal hit, there would have been massive deaths.

This also teaches that if there is a tropical disturbance in the Gulf, no matter how seemingly inconsequential, don’t let it out of your sight. It can go from 1 to 5 overnight.

On the bright side, only an incredibly rare hurricane makes landfall as more than a Cat 3. If Milton hits as a Cat 4, it will be the first since the Great Gale of 1848, 176 years ago, to do so. Never forget it’s the surge that causes the main portion of the damage.

The Tampa Bay area was saved by An Act of God. The intense wind shear saved the area from a massively disastrous Cat 4, or even a Cat 5 on arrival.

My only hope is that when people return they don’t ignore the next one to threaten them.

Because in the Gulf, there will always be “a next one.”

Ashley Fausak says:

Thanks, Levi. Your time and expertise are greatly appreciated.