Interesting article at Bloomberg ( https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... e-so-wrong )...

Twenty miles may have made a $150 billion difference.

Estimates for the damage Hurricane Irma would inflict on Florida kept mounting as it made its devastating sweep across the Caribbean. It was poised to be the costliest U.S. storm on record. Then something called the Bermuda High intervened and tripped it up.

“We got very lucky,” said Jeff Masters, co-founder of Weather Underground in Ann Arbor, Michigan. If Irma had passed 20 miles west of Marco Island instead of striking it on Sunday, “the damage would have been astronomical.” A track like that would have placed the powerful, eastern eye wall of Irma on Florida’s Gulf Coast.

Since my mom lives in the Tampa / St Pete area, I was locked in on this event. If the storm had kept going West and gathered up some more energy and hit Tampa / St Pete the damage would have been huge. Instead it hits Marco Island ( a place I've stayed at before ), disconnected from its energy source ( the Bay of Florida ) and dissipated its energy over Central Florida.

The article seems to want to focus on how the forecasts weren't accurate:

For 10 days, computer-forecast models had struggled with how the high was going to push Irma around and when it was going to stop, said Peter Sousounis, director of meteorology at AIR Worldwide. “I have never watched a forecast more carefully than Irma. I was very surprised not by how one model was going back and forth -- but by how all the models were going back and forth.”

And some interesting info on how we really could be facing very costly storms in the future:

Simulations based on the paths and powers of some that rammed the U.S. 100 or more years ago show they were far more disastrous, or would be if they arrived today when the population is much more dense and there is far more, and far more expensive, property to destroy.

One hurricane that raked the U.S. East Coast in 1893 was so furious the impact could have added up to $1 trillion. “They haven’t really happened in our modern economy,” Watson said, adding it’s only a matter of time. “We have so much stuff and so much infrastructure. Leave all the arguments about climate change aside; we are rapidly moving into that era where we are going to be seeing $50 billion, $100 billion storms, and I will not be surprised when we get to $300 billion.”

It must be an interesting time to be in the insurance game.

Not sure how to word this without being insensitive, but after the hits in the eastern Caribbean, how it ended was the best for everyone.
The push to the west was not strong enough to send it over Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic or Cuba, the latter was probably the most influential in breaking her down from a Cat5, hurricanes do not like mountains, the couple islands in the Bahamas that got hit were so flat and low lying that they had no effect.

Looking at what is now going on here and in the Keys I am hoping for two things:
1. Put all the infrastructure underground
2. When they say evacuate it is not always about your safety but quality of life after.

In older cities it is difficult to rip out existing poles to go underground, but looking at the keys with so much poles down, now is the time to go underground, looking at the hundreds of bucket trucks rolling and now working, we are putting up to have blown down again.

On yesterday's news they were interviewing those who did not evacuate from the Keys and to a person they wish they had. Lesson learned going forward.

Revelation wrote:

Interesting article at Bloomberg ( https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... e-so-wrong )...



The article seems to want to focus on how the forecasts weren't accurate:.

The models were all really accurate when you look at the size of the storm.
The big issues were that 50 miles means a lot of difference when going through that area of the Gulf,Atlantic and Caribbean. We should consider ourselves lucky that it didn't do a tap dance all the way up the east coast or west coast, which would have been much much worse.

dfwjim1 wrote:

On yesterday's news they were interviewing those who did not evacuate from the Keys and to a person they wish they had. Lesson learned going forward.

A major issue here in the Bahamas also, after the preservation of life comes the quality of life for those who remained, no water, no food, no electricity, no service, no nothing, and it quickly becomes a new disaster waiting to happen.

par13del wrote:

dfwjim1 wrote:

On yesterday's news they were interviewing those who did not evacuate from the Keys and to a person they wish they had. Lesson learned going forward.

A major issue here in the Bahamas also, after the preservation of life comes the quality of life for those who remained, no water, no food, no electricity, no service, no nothing, and it quickly becomes a new disaster waiting to happen.

Of course now the residents of The Keys who did not evacuate (after many warnings from the State and Federal Government) are now expecting immediate relief from their situation.

Revelation wrote:

It must be an interesting time to be in the insurance game.

It is, but for several other factors that are changing the industry, not particularly Irma and Harvey - the industry got complacent after 12 years with no major hurricanes making landfall in the Continental U.S., but this is just the reality of the game, and people quickly remembered they are there to pay claims. When you look at history (excess casualty crisis, asbestos & environmental claims, Andrew, Northridge earthquake, 9/11, KRW), the industry has been through much bigger challenges and Irma and Harvey will just be other storms. There is a reason Florida alone accounts for something like 10-20% of the global reinsurance market (I forget the exact numbers) - a low-lying area with such unpredictable climate and soil was simply not designed to have that amount of infrastructure.

The funny thing is, as Irma was plowing into Florida, most of the top executives in the global insurance industry were gathered in Monte Carlo for the annual industry shindig, where everybody gets together to discuss terms and conditions for the upcoming reinsurance renewals. Probably not a lot got done this year, as people were staring at their monitors, but I bet there were a lot of relieved faces at breakfast...

casinterest wrote:

Revelation wrote:

Interesting article at Bloomberg ( https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... e-so-wrong )...

The article seems to want to focus on how the forecasts weren't accurate:.

The models were all really accurate when you look at the size of the storm.
The big issues were that 50 miles means a lot of difference when going through that area of the Gulf,Atlantic and Caribbean. We should consider ourselves lucky that it didn't do a tap dance all the way up the east coast or west coast, which would have been much much worse.

Definitely agree.

Given how many people live in Florida, and given how limited the north/south highway capacity is, it takes days for any sizeable evacuation to happen, yet we cannot tell exactly where the storm will be days in advance, so you have to advise evacuation for any place the storm has a decent probability of hitting, which means those limited north/south highways get even more burdened, and so on, and so on, and so on.

And the internet gives everyone an opportunity to show how stupid they are when it comes to things like this.

Sure, the media profits from hype, but this isn't a case where they are driving the narrative.