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| Possible tracks Hurricane Irma could have taken, compared to its actual path |
The first week of September in 2017 found my family and I hunkered down in our house in West Palm Beach, Florida, preparing for the possibility that a Category 4 hurricane could hit our house. Though it was days before Hurricane Irma would actually make landfall in Florida, the National Hurricane Center official forecast cone showed possible paths for the center of the hurricane that encapsulated the entire Florida peninsula. One projected path had the eye wall of Irma passing right over the areas of Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach—right where we were.
My family put up the hurricane shutters on the downstairs sliding glass doors and windows, and turned the laundry room into a makeshift animal home—the bird and cats both had to come inside. The windows on the second floor of the house were hurricane glass, so only the downstairs had to have shutters put up. On top of that, my grandfather’s apartment was not nearly as secure as our house, so he came to stay with us. It well and truly felt like we were already living through the disaster.
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| The house I lived in at the time. All the windows on the second floor were hurricane glass. |
Normally during hurricane season, a part of me was excited. The irregularity of the shuttered first floor of the house, the smell of rain heavy in the air, running around with flashlights—it was all kind of thrilling. But not when there was actually a hurricane coming, and not when it could hit us at such a high category. We waited with baited breath and watched the news.
Irma made landfall on September 10 in the Florida keys in the early morning/afternoon as a category 4 hurricane. Later in the day as the hurricane continued on it weakened to a Category 3 in Marco Island, with winds at 115 mph. Overnight the hurricane moved north and northwest with more land interaction and wind shear. It continued to weaken and was finally a Category 1 by the morning of the 11th. After Irma passed east of Tampa it was classified as a tropical storm. By then, it had safely passed over us, and we had avoided most of the damage. Some trees were down in the neighborhood, and the pool was filled with light debris, but other than that, we were incredibly fortunate. My grandpa moved back out, the animals went back outside, and the shutters came down.
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Path and times of Hurricane Irma |
Other parts of the world were not as lucky as we were. Before Irma came to Florida, she spent time as a Category 5 hurricane (see Figure 3), during which she caused major damage to Saint Barthélemy, Saint Martin, the Virgin Islands, Barbuda and Anguilla. In Florida, Irma caused 84 deaths and at least $50 billion of damage, which (excluding Hurricane Katrina) marked it as the costliest in Florida’s history.
References
How Hurricane Irma's path could've been much worse. (2017, September 11). Local Weather Forecast, News and Conditions | Weather Underground. https://www.wunderground.com/article/storms/hurricane/news/hurricane-irma-could-have-been-worse
Hurricane Irma local report/Summary. (n.d.). National Weather Service. https://weather.gov.mfl/hurricaneirma
Hurricane Irma: The landfall, the aftermath, the recovery. (2022, October 12). Team Complete. https://www.teamcomplete.com/hurricane-irma/
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