Wilma attacking my brother

After going on and on about how it would be a tropical storm or a minimal Cat 1 by the time it got to the Miami area, and after going on and on how it would pass well north of him, part of the eye passed directly over him. He was awakened this morning by debris slamming into the walls of his apartment. A tree is down in his back yard, missing his apartment building by about 10 feet. The tops of the pine trees are just snapping off like twigs. Tree branches are being blown around like leaves and slamming into the ground hard enough to stand up. The Weather Channel is currently reporting 60mph sustained winds, and the western eye wall is now about to cross his location. Here is a picture he managed to send me once the eye arrived and there was a break in the chaos. This is the tree that is down, laying across the power lines, as seen through his bedroom window (reinforced for weather event just like this one).


After this experience, he has decided that if he is in the projected path cone with 24 hours to go before landfall, he is leaving. No offense to my weather professional friend, but apparently the ones down there went out of their way to assure everyone that there was no reason to leave (for the record, no evacuations (mandatory or voluntary) were issued), that things would be fine, and that it would at most be a "bad thunderstorm." Obviously, this is not the case. I've grown up with hurricanes. My family has lived on the east coast (actually on/near the ocean) for 15 of my 29 years; I know they don't know everything and they do the best they can, but there is a *huge* difference in a tropical storm and a Cat 3 hurricane.

Currently feeling: ready for this to be over