Hurricane Matthew Storm Surge expected 7-11 ft in Northeast Florida

[kpaulhus]

Can anyone from Florida provide some first hand pictures and whatnot of the storm? I am from Tampa and lived in Jacksonville for 5 years. Thinking of 7-11 ft of storm surge has me worndering what will be left on the Jax beach side of the inter coastal...including TPC Sawgrass. My former manager, who lives in the TPC neighborhood, said they are not sure what they will come back to with that kind of surge.

South Florida got pretty lucky with the storm turning up. The Weather Channel said this surge will be worse than the one that hit the Northeast with Sandy. As a Floridian, most storms are just a reason to get a day off of work and drink with your friends, as long as the power doesnt go out. This one is much different, and from what I can tell, most people I know heeded the warnings and evacuated. 

[boogielicious]

I hope everyone stays safe. 

[CarlSpackler]

The storm appears to be weakening as it moves north. We were fortunate in that it shifted slightly east overnight keeping the eye away from land. Until 11PM last night, they were thinking that heavier winds would come further inland. We were under the gun for a while. They are talking record storm surge though. We've been sitting here watching the news all morning since everything is closed and there is a curfew in effect. 

The Gov. is concerned about the Jacksonville area because of the low lying areas. It appears that it will stay off the coast and start it's turn out to the Atlantic. Hopefully the weakening will lessen the damage to JAX. Only time will tell.

[CarlSpackler]

Here is a quick video I took from my back yard earlier.

 

[David in FL]

You can see some live webcams from Daytona beach. Some are down due to high demand though...

http://surfinggator.com/Daytona/Cams/cams.html

 A lot of power outages, but not as bad as it could've been.  60mph winds here in Lake Mary and rain....

[CarlSpackler]

Here is some video my friend from Jacksonville shared. Not looking good.

https://www.facebook.com/ActionNewsJacksonville/videos/vb.115853591820469/1261828967222920/?type=2&theater

 

[kpaulhus]

My old course in south Jacksonville posted that a few trees are already down and the storm hasnt even arrived yet.

[Yukari]

1 hour ago, CarlSpackler said:

Here is some video my friend from Jacksonville shared. Not looking good.

https://www.facebook.com/ActionNewsJacksonville/videos/vb.115853591820469/1261828967222920/?type=2&theater

 

Holy crap!  That is some storm surge. Looks like all the sandy beaches will be washed away. 

[TourSpoon]

We got very lucky in WPB that the storm took a small jog east in the last few hours to spare us from the eye wall winds. I put up my shutters and hunkered down knowing that a cat 4 is nothing to fool with. We were prepared for the worst and if the storm would have gone a little bit west we would have been ground zero. There was little damage here and my power never went out. I am glad to say that most people here took it very seriously, especially with the Governor and local government being very clear about the storm's potential. I am living in a new place and realized that all of my bolts on the first floor and wing nut bolts on the second were painted over making it a little difficult to get it all done. Plenty of elbow grease went in to making sure nothing got stripped out. That meant doing it all by hand and not risking using a screw gun stripping everything. My winter project will be to replace all the hardware on the outside to make sure the next time its a 2 hour job, not a 5 hour process over 2 days. That was quite the workout! Good luck to my southern east coasters north of me! 

As of now the storm is still a cat 3 hugging the coast and I can't believe it hasn't had a direct hit. I was expecting sustained winds of 95 from the 2 pm forecast, but thankfully that didn't happen. Having been through 4 recent hurricanes (Frances, Jean, Wilma, Sandy), we got lucky with this monster. 

[David in FL]

Most of Sanford and a lot of Lake Mary (just east of Orlando) w/o power.  Orlando is pretty good though

Overall still better than it could've been.

[JetFan1983]

WPB resident here as well, and I just got home, having spent last night at a friend's house in Sarasota. I'm shocked how it looks like nothing really happened here. A few downed branches here and there, but that's about all I'm seeing right now. The roads are clear, most people's power (including mine) is up, and we even have internet. 

I was hunkered down just one mile from the Jersey shore during Sandy, and we didn't have power, let alone cable, for two weeks. Several roads were impassable for days. The lines at the gas stations were hours long, and I recall eating a decent amount of canned food in the early days. 

Man, PB County got spared big time. 

 

Here are a couple pics from my club though, Ironhorse CC. It's down the street from me. My friend sent me these. Looks like it could've been a lot worse. 

[saevel25]

Sadly there looks to be round 2 

[natureboy]

2 hours ago, saevel25 said:

Sadly there looks to be round 2 

Sucks for the Bahamas. Cat 4 storm followed by tropical storm a week later.

[JonMA1]

On 10/7/2016 at 0:21 PM, David in FL said:

You can see some live webcams from Daytona beach. Some are down due to high demand though...

http://surfinggator.com/Daytona/Cams/cams.html

 A lot of power outages, but not as bad as it could've been.  60mph winds here in Lake Mary and rain....

I'm glad all of you in the wake of the storm got through with minimal damage. Will hope the same goes for those further up the coast. Still sucks going through wind and flood damage and dealing with insurance claims.

You're right, a slight turn to the West at the wrong time and there could have been more loss of life.

[Hardspoon]

15 hours ago, saevel25 said:

Sadly there looks to be round 2 

Crazy.  Is this common for tropical storms/hurricanes in the Caribbean?  I never realized the would "loop around" like that.  Isn't it more common that they head out into the Atlantic and die off?

[saevel25]

32 minutes ago, Hardspoon said:

Crazy.  Is this common for tropical storms/hurricanes in the Caribbean?  I never realized the would "loop around" like that.  Isn't it more common that they head out into the Atlantic and die off?

This is actually very uncommon. Most storms end up going towards the north east out into the cold Atlantic. The only reason this is doing the loop around is because there was a cold front and the other tropical storm that is located almost directly east of the hurricane.

[Hardspoon]

2 hours ago, saevel25 said:

This is actually very uncommon. Most storms end up going towards the north east out into the cold Atlantic. The only reason this is doing the loop around is because there was a cold front and the other tropical storm that is located almost directly east of the hurricane.

Ah, gotcha. That sucks...

[CarlSpackler]

5 hours ago, saevel25 said:

This is actually very uncommon. Most storms end up going towards the north east out into the cold Atlantic. The only reason this is doing the loop around is because there was a cold front and the other tropical storm that is located almost directly east of the hurricane.

It's starting to look like it will go off to the Atlantic and not loop around thank goodness.