Preview of Coming Attractions:
Hurricane Ian just swept across Florida. September 2022.
Ironically 22 years earlier hurricane Isidoro was on the same track across the Caribbean, and headed for Florida. My wife Jane emailed her friend Deb in Florida with the news to be on the alert. Deb replied to Jane, “you better take another look”. Sure enough Isidoro headed north then took an abrupt dog-leg turn to the west on track for Yucatan. Steering currents driven by a pressure gradients from an approaching cold front miraculously diverted this giant storm away from Florida.
Isidoro turned west ravaging the north coast of Yucatan sending salty storm surges 20 miles inland.
Isidiro then turned southwest directly at Mérida where it would ravage us in Mérida for 12 tortuous hours. The electrical commissioner announced on the public radio that the service would be cut for three hours while the storm passed.
It would be three weeks before the electric and water service was restored. Outlying districts were without service for up to six months.
Our good friend Armando Troyo had the good fortune to have sold his waterfront home two months before the hurricane struck. After the hurricane his home was gone and even the land it stood on.
This was a very bad storm, but in 1987 hurricane Gilberto, a category five hurricane slammed Yucatan full force driving sea going freighters into downtown Cancun, destroying the first three floors on all structures on the beach, knocking down all the power poles from Cancun to Mérida and not leaving a single leaf on a tree for 150 miles inland from the sea.
Back to Florida: Having lived aboard our boat for 22 years and built or renovated seven waterfront properties in Florida we were observing climate change first hand. At that time there were one or two category five hurricanes every century. Now category five hurricanes strike more than three times per season.
We have a friend on the East Coast of Florida who recently had four direct hits in one year. They have extensive waterfront property.
In the early 1990’s we divested ourselves of all of our waterfront properties and boats. We are very glad we did, and that we have all of our boating experiences behind us. Fortunately we didn’t face a hurricane loss in Florida.
However hurricanes in Florida, the latest being Ian, have left many homeowners destitute because they could not get insured, didn’t get insured or the insurance companies refused their claims. They are now homeless.
We have observed climate change is a reality. Science deniers are blind to reality or don’t care.
This is a preview of coming attractions.
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