Showing posts with label hurricane coverage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hurricane coverage. Show all posts

Saturday, September 16, 2017

When the going gets tough, doers take charge. My own experience of Florida Power and Light electricity outages in #HollywoodFL as of Saturday afternoon. My neighborhood got power on Thursday but my neighbors and I on our street are STILL an island of darkness and frustration

It's proving to be a very sheepish Saturday... 

Just wanted to share some thoughts on FP&L outages in Hollywood as of Saturday afternoon, after having gone down in-person at 12:45 PM today to the multi-state utility company staging area on the south side of Gulfstream Park Race Track & Casino in Hallandale Beach.

The outage and its attendant days of frustration, largely spent away from the house and spending lots of money just to keep out of the sweltering heat -and keep my cell phone and laptop charged- and nights of quiet exasperation/exhaustion, without a breeze to be found, STILL includes my house on Wiley Street.

To be factual, it's my house and about 5-7 others on the south side of the 1400 block of Wiley Street and a similar number of houses behind us on the north side of Mayo Street, despite the fact that electricity in the larger neighborhood west of Temple Beth El came on sometime Thursday afternoon.
I can't prove it, but I'm pretty sure that when the streetlight on the north side of the street across from my house comes on at night, it's actually mocking me as I sit on the porch, sipping my room temperature soda...

On Wednesday, the FP&L power line that connects to my house from the pole in the alley, which has been lying on the ground in my backyard since last Sunday when one of my neighbor's large palm trees came crashing thru the fence and yanked the line off the house, started sparking when the electricity was returned to the larger neighborhood.
Two houses down from us, I heard that a light pole in the alley caught on fire at the same time.

None of the neighbors that I have spoken to on Wiley has seen a FP&L rep or truck (or another utility company) working in the alley since Thursday, so the popular sentiment on the street about whether the power company cavalry will be back and be able to keep the promise they made at their press conference this week that power should be restored by Sunday night, is starting to look like a promise about to be broken.
At least on my street.

So that's what lead me today to head down to Gulfstream, since I recall FP&L previously using the old Gulfstream parking lot off of US-1 that's now home to their retail shops, as a staging area for utility workers and trucks for Hurricane Wilma. 
That resulted in me without power for two weeks, even while Aventura, then a ten minute walk from where I was living, was up and running right away.

Today, after lots of walking around from one tent and trailer to another, I finally found someone from FP&L near the logistics tent who seemed responsible.
Even better than just looking responsible, though, he said that he could do something 
tangible about the larger problem where I live in Hollywood, and help get a team dispatched to the alley between Wiley and Mayo.

Eventually.
Sometime...
Whenever that is...

Just checked FP&L's homepage for any changes before I post this.

Now they're saying by 11:45 PM on... Monday night.
And that the number of affected customers is about 121.

Que sera sera..

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Great Miami Hurricane of 1926 - Eighty-seven years ago today, what there was of Miami and South Florida was largely destroyed by a powerful Category 4 hurricane that devastated everything in sight, ending the Florida land boom in a heartbeat, plunging South Florida into an early economic Depression and retarding this area's growth and maturity forever in very profound and fundamental ways that have never been fully explored or understood, even now; The great "IF only" question - what if IT never hit?; And THAT is why they're called the University of Miami Hurricanes


moviemagg YouTube Channel video: The Great Miami Hurricane of 1926 Uploaded August 27, 2012. http://youtu.be/3cEfsp3Mn1s
Great Miami Hurricane of 1926 - Eighty-seven years ago today, in 1926, what there was of Miami and South Florida was largely destroyed by a powerful Category 4 hurricane that devastated everything in sight, ending the Florida land boom in a heartbeat, plunging South Florida into an early economic Depression and retarding this area's growth and maturity forever in very profound and fundamental ways that have never been fully explored or understood, even now; The great "IF only" question - what if it never hit?; And THAT is why they're called the University of Miami Hurricanes 





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1926_Miami_hurricane

"as late as the morning of September 17, less than 24 hours before the category 4 storm's effects would begin in South Florida, no warnings had been issued."
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/mfl/?n=miami_hurricane

"At the height of the storm surge, the water from the Atlantic extended all the way across Miami Beach and Biscayne Bay into the City of Miami for several city blocks."
See map: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/images/mfl/events/1926hurricane/inundation.jpg

Pictorial history of the Florida hurricane: forty-seven views and five pages of information, September 18, 1926
http://www.wolfsonian.org/explore/collections/pictorial-history-florida-hurricane-september-18-1926-pictorial-history-florida-

Photo of Great Miami Hurricane of 1926 historical marker:
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/images/mfl/events/1926hurricane/1926_marker_1.JPG


Don Boyd - Miami's new drydock near Biscayne Blvd. as a result of the Hurricane of 1926
http://www.pbase.com/donboyd/image/77164210/original

More photos at:
http://www.pbase.com/search?q=1926+Hurricane&b=Search+Photos&c=sp
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Saturday, August 27, 2011

Follow Local TV News coverage of Hurricane Irene all weekend on DirectTV Channels 259, 325 & 349

Anna Bulszewcz of of Channel 12/WCTI-TV

Per my last post, both honest yet somewhat tongue-in-cheek, do yourself a big favor and stop watching the TV cablenets' hysterical New York-centric coverage of Hurricane Irene and see what's going on at the local level.

Follow Local News coverage of Hurricane Irene all weekend as it makes its way north along the Eastern Seaboard via DirectTV Channels 259, 325 & 349.
Cities scheduled to participate include Greenville/New Bern/Jacksonville, NC, New York City, Norfolk, VA. Richmond, VA, Roanoke, VA, Washington, D.C.

Even if it's for no other reason that you're tired of watching video of Mayor Bloomberg's press conferences where people behind him -and why do they have to be standing behind him?- always have a look on their face like they have hemorrhoids, and we get to hear dopey questions from the local wise guy press corps.

Did you hear that stupid question today about whether the mayor was over-reacting by closing down the transportation system at Noon on Saturday?
What, like you're going to just leave everything out where it can be exposed to hurricane-force wind and rain for hours when you don't have to?
Yet another low moment for journalism as the NYC press corps continue to play follow-the-leader.
You'd almost think the reporters asking the questions don't live there, and were just helicoptered in.

I've been watching Channel 12/WCTI-TV out of Greenville/New Bern/Jacksonville, NC -the home of lots of military bases and military families, like Camp Lejeune- since about 1 a.m., and they have remained a lot more measured and calm while the storm is causing massive blackouts, than some of the network correspondents I saw earlier where nothing was happening -yet.
Just a constructive suggestion...

Amanda Brannon of Channel 12/WCTI-TV


And poor Boston, they are being completely ignored by the East Coast's Mainstream Media.
Once the storm passes NYC, the MSM are going to leave their studios in Manhattan and Fort Lee, go home and knock a few drinks back and call it a night.
Boston, you are on your own!

*And brainy, beautiful balletomane Robyn Hunter, formerly of Fort Smith, AR, my friend from D.C., if you are still in the Boston area, please be careful this weekend!
You have an amazing future ahead of you, so don't play hero trying to save people who use bad judgment. You can't save everyone.


3:35 am