What would happen if Miami got a direct hit?

[garybeck]

I was just watching the video of Rita moving into the Gulf. I couldn't help but think, if it was a little furhter north it would hit Miami. What would happen if Miami took a direct hit from a monster storm like this? I looked it up and the city is only 7ft above sea level. I hate to think of bad things but I couldn't help wondering as I watched the video.

[brainshrub]

1. Miami would survive, Ft. Lauderdale will cease to exist.

Ft. Lauderdale has lots of homes built under lax building codes during a the housing boom of the mid-80s. Many of the fancy condos are right on the beach and will get swept away.

Everything east of I-95 is doomed.

I suspect that the upper-class community of Weston, which is placed fairly inland, will be under 5 feet of water because the dams that re-direct the water will have to be shut down.

[newscott]

2. A large part of Miami is sheltered by Biscayne bay

but I don't know what effect a cat. 5 would have on that area.

I suspect Miami Beach would probably fare worse as it is closer to open water.

[Tuesday_Morning]

3. very tough to evacuate...

There aren't that many roads out of there.

[daninthemoon]

4. Here's what I keep wonderin: These hurricanes all seem to go

right through Cuba, and we don't get any news about their disasters at all. They haveto be taking hits, and I know lots of Miamians have relatives there, not to mention the rest of us having a humanitarian interest. Do they have a magic way to survive these storms, do the Cubans not let any news get reported on them, or is there that much bias in USA that Cubans just don't count?

[Silverhair]

7. Geography helps Cuba.

Cuba is rugged hilly terrain. Storm surge and flooding are the big killers in hurricanes. All you need to do in any hurricane evacuation is to get about 30 feet about high tide sea level, and in a sturdy building, and you can ride out any hurricane. So most evacuations only have to go a short ways to sturdy shelters.

[daninthemoon]

8. What about the buildings themselves? I assume there is lots of

stuff on the coastlines like anywhere else. What happens there?

[Silverhair]

11. Anything that gets hit by the storm surge is destroyed. NT

[CottonBear]

9. Cuba has a nationwide Hurricane evacuation and safety plan

which is implemented several times each year. The disaster and evacuation and shelter planning takes place at the federal, regional and local levels. Most small and remote cities and towns have community centers with solar powered facilities and communications. Each town and community knows what to do and where to go in the event of a hurricane. Thus, the Cubans rarely suffer loss of life or limb. Since they are on an island, they can't take any chances. We should learn from them. They also have some of the best doctors and health care workers in the Caribbean and are well prepared for natural disaster relief.

[Silverhair]

10. Easy to do that kind of thing in a dictatorship.

Try something like that in the US and the lawsuits would fly and people would correctly be screaming about their civil rights. Look at the posts on DU when a mandatory evacuation of N.O. was declared. Many supported the right of people to stay if they wanted to.

[CottonBear]

12. They HAVE to do it since they live on a freaking island.

What else can they do? It's a big island but, it's an island nonetheless. I believe that the Cuban people as a whole have a better understanding of the danger of hurricanes (since they live on an island in the direct path of Atlantic hurricanes) and they don't have the fear of being displaced from their homes. Therefore, it is not hard to evacuate. Everyone knows they can go home again.


I have Grenadian friends who were wiped out by Ivan. 90% of the homes were destroyed along with most infrastructure and public buildings. Then another hurricane hit them. One of the few buildings that withstood the storm was a new school that some of my colleagues designed. Grenada is a much smaller island and had not been hit by a hurricane in 50 years. They had no plan at all and they got destroyed. They still haven't rebuilt much of anything.
It's very sad.

[daninthemoon]

14. I don't see that requires a dictatorship. Sounds like they have done

what no-one here seems to have done; developed a plan and followed through. Has the traffic jam out of Houston opened up yet? Just wondering.

[KharmaTrain]

5. Traffic Would Be A Disaster...Where Do You Go?

I have friends and family in Broward...we've talked a lot about this over the years. Most of Ft. Lauderdale is within 5 miles of the coast on relatively low land...built up from swamps. A Katrina-like storm surge that went well inland would destroy thousands of older homes.

A common fear was and is "where to go". Florida hurricanes can jump around and the options to get out are limited. The best escape is north up to Orlando or Melbourne...but those roads are sure to be clogged...even with contra-flow. The other option is across Alligator Alley to Naples, and that's two lanes that are a challenge to drive in the best of conditions. And just because you beat the storm out of Broward, doesn't mean it won't catch up with you elsewhere.

A good friend who lives in Ft. Lauderdale says that many of the homes that have been built in the past 20 years are better suited to deal with hurricanes. His home, he was told, was rated to stay "intact" through a Cat 4 hurricane...and last year he rode out the storms in his home...but that wasn't a Cat. 4.

I've read warnings for years about the potential damage that could occur to Miami with a direct hit...and we saw an indirect result with Andrew in '92 and can imagine seeing the power of Katrina. Let's hope this remains hypothetical and we finally learn that nature controls us, not the other way around...and we must live accordingly.

[Zynx]

6. If a Cat 5 hit, it would be really ugly, let's put it that way

First off, you have the storm surge - that would wash right over most of the city because it simply has no elevation to speak of.

Then you have the winds. The older structures in the city couldn't withstand them and the high rises would actually be in some danger due to height amplification of winds.

[RagingInMiami]

13. Here's a Miami Herald article that addressed that issue

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/12667537.htm

[GreenArrow]

15. Great Miami Hurricane 1926

The "Great Miami" Hurricane was first spotted as a tropical wave located 1,000 miles east of the Lesser Antilles on September 11th. The system moved quickly westward and intensified to hurricane strength as it moved to the north of Puerto Rico on the 15th. Winds were reported to be nearly 150 mph as the hurricane passed over the Turks Islands on the 16th and through the Bahamas on the 17th. Little in the way of meteorological information on the approaching hurricane was available to the Weather Bureau in Miami. As a result, hurricane warnings were not issued until midnight on September 18th, which gave the booming population of South Florida little notice of the impending disaster.

The Category 4 hurricane's eye moved directly over Miami Beach and downtown Miami during the morning hours of the 18th. This cyclone produced the highest sustained winds ever recorded in the United States at the time, and the barometric pressure fell to 27.61 inches as the eye passed over Miami. A storm surge of nearly 15 feet was reported in Coconut Grove. Many casualties resulted as people ventured outdoors during the half-hour lull in the storm as the eye passed overhead. Most residents, having not experienced a hurricane, believed that the storm had passed during the lull. They were suddenly trapped and exposed to the eastern half of the hurricane shortly thereafter. Every building in the downtown district of Miami was damaged or destroyed. The town of Moore Haven on the south side of Lake Okeechobee was completely flooded by lake surge from the hurricane. Hundreds of people in Moore Haven alone were killed by this surge, which left behind floodwaters in the town for weeks afterward.

The hurricane continued northwestward across the Gulf of Mexico and approached Pensacola on September 20th. The storm nearly stalled to the south of Pensacola later that day and buffeted the central Gulf Coast with 24 hours of heavy rainfall, hurricane force winds, and storm surge. The hurricane weakened as it moved inland over Louisiana later on the 21st. Nearly every pier, warehouse, and vessel on Pensacola Bay was destroyed.
The great hurricane of 1926 ended the economic boom in South Florida and would be a $90 billion disaster had it occurred in recent times. With a highly transient population across southeastern Florida during the 1920s, the death toll is uncertain since more than 800 people were missing in the aftermath of the cyclone. A Red Cross report lists 373 deaths and 6,381 injuries as a result of the hurricane.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/HAW2/english/history.shtml#hugo