Tropical Storm Fay Floods Jacksonville

[uptowngirl]

Well the city must be doing OK if we aren;t inlcuded in the disaster counties huh? Non need to spend gazillions of dollars afterall, just a couple thousand to save Corine's house!

[uptowngirl]

Ahhh...but there is also the labor cost for filling, delivering, and placement. Unless it is just a given that Corine doesn't have to pay 

[civil42806]

Since the bickering is reaching new heights for the site I decided to dig through the NWS and try to figure out how much rain we had in 2004, I certainly didn't remember anything approaching this level. 

TS bonnie was tough to find good records but did find a map that layed out the rainfall on a general scale, showed jacksonville received 1 to 3 inches.

TS charlie, according the NWS 1.73" of rain.

Hurricane Frances is the one I think most of us remember most vividly, 9.71" of rain.

Keep in mind this is spread out over a month.  Totals are no where near what the city received in just a couple of days.  Most of the damage for these three storms was actually wind damage, trees and tree limbs, knocking out power and falling onto homes and vehicles.

[gatorback]

I haven't missed much...Lol...anywho, I'm glad she got the sandbags.  I know the city has a policy not to do ad hoc work on private property.  It has to do with insurance and liability.  Should somebody get fired, no.

[Ocklawaha]

Rain anyone?

Let's see, Donna hit the First Coast in 1960. Making landfall down in Fort Myers, she dumped 18" of rain in Live Oak, and similar amounts here. Storm surge was 8' above normal. For you beach-I'll just ride out the next one-types... Go out and take a tape from the highest tide, and add 8' to that. Then add some giant waves on top and you'll get an idea of what your in for. But Donna was just a warm up.

In 1964, Dora a large well defined category 4 storm headed toward Brunswick, the outflow from an off coast storm Cleo (if I recall) started to take her energy down. She slowed and winds started to drop, but she still packed a dangerous punch. Suddenly she veered west, and made landfall at St. Augustine, and a bee line for Jacksonville. The storm surge at St. Augustine was 12' above normal high tide. Needless to say, only the castle and the tops of the larger hotels were out of the path. She dumped 23.27 inches of rain over Mayo, Florida (just south of Live Oak). She took out the beaches like a giant aquatic bull dozier.  In fact the damage in todays dollars would be 2 BILLION, in Jax alone. BUT, today we have 200,000 new homes and buildings in the lowlands of the Intercoastal and other parts of the city that would make that figure much, much higher.

These were the first storms since 1851 to hit the Jacksonville area, and they dispelled the myth that Jax is immune from tropical storms. So perhaps Fay was a good thing, sand bags and all... Perhaps we have seen the devil and better understand how to respond. Or perhaps her gentle blow, gave us another false sense of security?

An interesting sidebar, was noted before both of the above storms. 30 days before they came in, in BOTH cases a sudden and unexplained migration of sea turtles hit the beaches, headed INLAND! It got the attention of every science type in the land, the Seminole made a statement that the "ancients of Jacksonville, told them the turtle exit is a sure sign that a tropical storm will hit..." Of course the science types just blew it off. The NWS gave us 12 hour warnings, and in both cases the Native System gave us 30 days. The way I see it, it's NWS - 0 and Seminoles - 2!  Wonder if this was seen this time? Was Fay too weak to count? Could it be there aren't enough turtles left to notice them?

OCKLAWAHA

[gatorback]

OK.  Given TD 7, and beyond, what were the lessons learned from fay as more are sure to come.

[Lunican]

JACKSONVILLE IS FLOODED.; Water Reaches First-Story Windows of the City.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla., May 13, 1903 -- The rain which had been falling incessantly since yesterday assumed about daybreak almost the proportions of a cloudburst, and when the citizens prepared to leave for their places of business many of them found their homes completely surrounded by water.

Full Article:
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9C04EED81F30E733A25757C1A9639C946297D6CF

[BridgeTroll]

8.5 inches in 24 hours... last paragraph describes Hogans Creek flooding...

There must be local accounts of this flood.

[Reaper man]

Full Article:
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9C04EED81F30E733A25757C1A9639C946297D6CF

forgive my ignorance, but why did you necropost a 1 year old topic?

[Lunican]

Because it was topical. Many of our threads go on for multiple years.

[Reaper man]

Because it was topical. Many of our threads go on for multiple years.

Heh, sorry, I just come from online communities where a necropost gives you a boot to the head. ;p

[Jason]

You're the Reaper man right?  Just punish him.