"I've no ideas what to expect"
I have lived in Hurricane Alley all my life. Here's what you can expect.
The entire hurricane show will take about 3 days to play out.
Day 1
First you will see a lot of really neat clouds. Then you will see some rain. Not much, just a lot of wind and the feeling the clouds have somewhere else to go.
Then every once in a while you will notice a gust of wind at about twice the speed of the other winds. It will bend the trees a little. Still no rain to speak of and you will probably be outside taking in the show.
Day 2
The winds today are steady at the speed of yesterday's gusts. The gusts are twice that. Street signs are flapping in the breeze. Small branches are torn out of all the trees and littering your yard. Still not a lot of rain yet. Just a few passing showers falling from more angry clouds on their way somewhere else. Trees are bending. Yes bending. You have never seen trees do that and you are absolutely positive that one or two of them can't take much more. You stand where the house shelters you from the wind to watch the show.
Day 3
You went outside this morning and noticed that the paper was not delivered. The mail won't be either, The rains, when they come are much heavier. The drops go by almost horizontal and they hurt when they hit you. Gusts of wind are now amazing you withg their power. Larger limbs are falling from trees now and don't fall straight down. Your wife and kids look at you with a look of fear in their eyes that makes you wish you had heeded the evac order.
Very quickly things start getting out of hand. Gusts are much more frequent now comming less than a minute apart. The rain is almost constant. A few minutes ago a gust tore a 30 square foot section of shingles off your neighbor's house and now they are in a pile in your front yard. The electricity has been off since about midnight last night. The phone stopped working this morning. Cell phone doesn't work either.
You would leave now but the wind is so strong and the rain so intense you know that your car won't be able to stay on the road. Even if you did make it to the car, it would do you no good because the roads have been flooded since last night.
The water has risen to the level of your door sill and is white capping in your front yard. For some reason there is mud on your front window????? You see that the big oak tree in your front yard went down and just missed your house.
The noise is deafening. The wind sounds like a cross between a runaway freight train and a dive bomber. It is so loud it makes it hard to think. The house is shaking from the force and you can actually see the walls move. Water is now a foot deep all through the house. You huddle with your family and the dog in the bathtub with a mattress pulled over you. The roar of the wind threatens to drive you mad. You have to scream to communicate with your wife who is right next to you.
Right then your metal mailbox separates from the post. It travels horizontally directly at your house. By the time it hits your picture window it is traveling at 160 miles per hour.
The mailbox goes through the window like a rifle bullet and lodges in the drywall on the other side of your living room. Instantly the wind drives the air pressure inside your house up by 10 pounds per square inch. That is 1,440 pounds of upward pressure per square foot on your roof. The house literally explodes as the roof is lifted off and drives into the neighbors house causing a chain reaction as his roof goes too.
You are cold, wet and terrified. The wind is so strong and so loud that you cannot think. You hold your family for dear life as the winds pull at them. The water is rising. You cannot see what is going on anymore as night has fallen.
It gets worse. Much worse.
Talk to Ihub member ZZTops. he stuck it out in Homestead for Andrew. His house was destroyed around him.
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