Hurricane Irma Could Hit New York on 9-11

[Mystic Wanderer]

Once again, IRMA has outfoxed the weathermen. It is now predicted to hit Tampa, not Miami, leaving little time for the city to evacuate!

I made friends with someone online who lives in Tampa, but we lost contact when I left (for the most part) ATS. He was a regular poster on my thread(s) over there. I pray he and his family will get out and be safe.  

Remember, you can keep up with this live view to see where the hurricanes are:  Watch Live Map

NAPLES, Fla. (AP) —
Hurricane Irma's leading edges whipped palm trees and kicked up the surf as the storm spun toward Florida with 125 mph winds Saturday on a projected new track that could put Tampa — not Miami — in the crosshairs.

Tampa has not taken a direct hit from a major hurricane in nearly a century.

The westward swing in the overnight forecast caught many people off guard along Florida's Gulf coast and triggered an abrupt shift in the storm preparations. A major round of evacuations was ordered in the Tampa area, and shelters there soon began filling up.
The window was closing fast for anyone wanting to escape before the arrival of the fearsome storm Sunday morning. Irma — at one time the most powerful hurricane ever recorded in the open Atlantic — left more than 20 people dead across the Caribbean.
"You need to leave — not tonight, not in an hour, right now," Gov. Rick Scott warned residents in Florida's evacuation zones, which encompassed a staggering 6.4 million people, or more than 1 in 4 people in the state.

For days, the forecast had made it look as if the Miami metropolitan area of 6 million people on Florida's Atlantic coast could get hit head-on with the catastrophic and long-dreaded Big One.
But that soon changed. Meteorologists predicted Irma's center would blow ashore Sunday morning in the perilously low-lying Florida Keys, then hit southwestern Florida and hug the state's western coast, plowing into the Tampa Bay area by Monday morning.
The Miami metro area could still get pounded with life-threatening hurricane winds.
Tampa has not been struck by a major hurricane since 1921, when its population was about 10,000, National Hurricane Center spokesman Dennis Feltgen said. Now the area has around 3 million people.

The new course threatens everything from Tampa Bay's bustling twin cities of Tampa and St. Petersburg to Naples' mansion- and yacht-lined canals, Sun City Center's retirement homes, and Sanibel Island's shell-filled beaches.
By late morning Saturday, however, few businesses in St. Petersburg and its barrier islands had put plywood or hurricane shutters on their windows, and some locals grumbled about the change in the forecast.

"For five days, we were told it was going to be on the east coast, and then 24 hours before it hits, we're now told it's coming up the west coast," said Jeff Beerbohm, a 52-year-old entrepreneur in St. Petersburg. "As usual, the weatherman, I don't know why they're paid."
Irma was chugging forward as a Category 3, with winds down considerably from their peak of 185 mph (300 kph) earlier in the week. But the hurricane was expected to strengthen again before hitting the Sunshine State.

Nearly the entire Florida coastline remained under hurricane watches and warnings, and leery residents watched a projected track that could still shift to spare, or savage, parts of the state.
Forecasters warned of storm surge as high as 15 feet.

"This is going to sneak up on people," said Jamie Rhome, head of the hurricane center's storm surge unit.
With the new forecast, Pinellas County, home to St. Petersburg, ordered 260,000 people to leave, while Georgia scaled back evacuation orders for some coastal residents. Motorists heading inland from the Tampa area were allowed to drive on the shoulders.

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