2022 Tropical Storm and Hurricane Thread

[SydneyCarton 49,325]

2 minutes ago, texasdago said:

When we lived in Houston, we had a whole home generator done through Reliant... turnkey solution with a Kohler (better than Generac) that had an automatic transfer switch and all the bells and whistles... all the trenching, laying of the generator pad, gas hookup, permits, etc. etc.    Came close to $9K but it was worth every penny.   Our old neighborhood was prone to outages and we never had issues.  After we moved out of Houston and when freezemageddon happened, our old house apparently was all lit up and warm while the rest of the neighborhood was dark and frigid.  

After winter storm Uri, my guess would be that the setup you had probably would go for close to 20k these days. At least 15k.

[Brew 3,049]

1 hour ago, SydneyCarton said:

Is that not potentially partial collapse of the causeway in the background? Maybe that was what that shitty shot was trying to point out?

I mean, I assume insurance is mandatory and expensive, no?

The Causeway bridge is the large one in that shot. It is the first span on the right that is out. It leads to two islands with low lying bridges between them and Sanibel. It’s basically FT Myers, causeway bridge, island, low clearance bridge, island, bridge, Sanibel (out of shot to the left). Some pictures earlier made it look like the connecting bridges may be completely down also. Looks like the ferries will have to get back up and running.

[Trey3216 15,450]

12 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

After winter storm Uri, my guess would be that the setup you had probably would go for close to 20k these days. At least 15k.

Naming winter storms is the epitome of shock journalism.  

[royiv 9,689]

27 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

I've gone that route with our electrician, casually. He said sure, he can wire up the box to flip to a generator, but realistically he said even a big one is only going to power a few appliances, et best. He said we were better off going to a pro like generac and getting the spread. 

Go with Kohler. Generac is the low end of the market and they let anyone with a pulse be a part of their dealer network. 

[SydneyCarton 49,325]

3 minutes ago, Trey3216 said:

Naming winter storms is the epitome of shock journalism.  

[royiv 9,689]

16 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

After winter storm Uri, my guess would be that the setup you had probably would go for close to 20k these days. At least 15k.

I'm having this type of set-up installed at my 3,500 sf home hopefully by the end of November. Cost is $16k.

[heso 2,848]

7 minutes ago, Brew said:

The Causeway bridge is the large one in that shot. It is the first span on the right that is out. It leads to two islands with low lying bridges between them and Sanibel. It’s basically FT Myers, causeway bridge, island, low clearance bridge, island, bridge, Sanibel (out of shot to the left). Some pictures earlier made it look like the connecting bridges may be completely down also. Looks like the ferries will have to get back up and running.

 

 

[SydneyCarton 49,325]

3 minutes ago, royiv said:

I'm having this type of set-up installed at my 3,500 sf home hopefully by the end of November. Cost is $16k.

Want to shoot me your guy's name?

[texasdago 7,753]

8 minutes ago, royiv said:

Go with Kohler. Generac is the low end of the market and they let anyone with a pulse be a part of their dealer network. 

Correct.  Our trusted electrician (he was not involved with the install of the generator) said he would pick Kohler over Generac 100% of the time.  Commercial-grade generators.  More expensive, better quality.  

Whoever you use, see if you can negotiate a maintenance plan.  We had a five-year plan thrown in so they could come out and do annual maintenance.  You need that.

Edited September 29, 2022 by texasdago

[Bevo 13,825]

23 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Wow, some of y’all are sheltered or something, it’s like “tell me you’ve never stolen a boat without telling me you’ve never stolen a boat.”

From where can I purchase one of these yachts? I am looking for a 38ft. Fountain SFC or a large Cat - 2017 or newer - $25K. You can PM me your address.

[royiv 9,689]

11 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

Want to shoot me your guy's name?

Will do. Are you in the Houston area?

[Brew 3,049]

1 hour ago, SydneyCarton said:

I mean, I assume insurance is mandatory and expensive, no?

Insurance isn’t mandatory, I would say the majority of properties on island were bought with cash based on discussions with realtors and title people and therefore self insured. Getting financed was actually pretty difficult when we decided to take advantage of the stupid low rates last year and free up some capital for other things.

Flood insurance is worthless when it has a $250k cap and the cost up significantly in SWFL. We took over a policy, so we didn’t pay much for it and ended up keeping it even though we were 12 feet off the ground. Some of the houses we looked at on the water were $20k+ for commercial flood insurance with still limited coverage. Homeowners and wind were a few thousand for us because we renovated everything up to current wind standards, but it was $8k or so before that with a high deductible on a relatively inexpensive house compared to most there. We were maybe 200 yards off the beach.

A lot of people self insure especially with the rising insurance cost. We didn’t like the risk of it and got ours down to a reasonable amount post renovation so it was worth it. If we would have closed on the waterfront houses we had under contract, we would not have paid for flood but would have kept wind.

[immamac 44,200]

If you are gonna spend that much on a generator are these diesel? I got a 12KW portable dual fuel generator on prime day for 800 dollars. It peaks at 55 amps. It'll run my entire house as long as it has fuel. 

[Brew 3,049]

23 minutes ago, heso said:

 

 

Multiple issues there, that first video isn’t a missing bridge though. It cut one of the causeway islands in half. It looks like the actual bridges lost the connections from the road to the bridges which is better than losing a bridge span, but the split island is going to either dictate another bridge or refilling it I assume. They just started a multi-year project last year to put protection around the causeway islands to limit storm damage. 

[SydneyCarton 49,325]

12 minutes ago, royiv said:

Will do. Are you in the Houston area?

Yup, Houston Heights-ish.

[SydneyCarton 49,325]

9 minutes ago, immamac said:

If you are gonna spend that much on a generator are these diesel? I got a 12KW portable dual fuel generator on prime day for 800 dollars. It peaks at 55 amps. It'll run my entire house as long as it has fuel. 

There are options. The most attractive ones to me are the ones that tie directly into our home's natural gas lines. Also, 12k might power your entire house, but I'm skeptical it would power everything in your house at the same time.

Edited September 29, 2022 by SydneyCarton

[Nueces River Rat 5,742]

46 minutes ago, Trey3216 said:

Naming winter storms is the epitome of shock journalism.  

Yea it's stupid.  

[WBT 20,884]

I have a 15kW portable that I switch over at the breaker box.  It ran everything after Nicholas last year - 5 ton AC, freezer, all the appliances.

Edited September 29, 2022 by WBT

[jimmyjazz 46,976]

Ft. Myers Fire Chief on CNN right now, says he is not aware of any fatalities.  That would be amazing.

[texasdago 7,753]

14 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

There are options. The most attractive ones to me are the ones that tie directly into our home's natural gas lines. Also, 12k might power your entire house, but I'm skeptical it would power everything in your house at the same time.

Correct... connected directly to the natural gas line and with the automatic transfer switch, the generator kicks on after about 7 seconds and the lights are back on 2-3 seconds later.  Nothing you have to do but to let the system do all the work.  I think ours was something like 15k which was enough to power what we needed.  Also, the way we looked at it, if there was a big outage, we would run the essentials... not have everything going on at once.

[jimmyjazz 46,976]

Yeah, the ATS would be something I might consider just because I wouldn't necessarily trust my wife to know how to flip the switch if I wasn't home, but honestly, I don't think one needs to power every light bulb, appliance, TV, etc. during a grid outage.  Refrigerators & freezers and HVAC would cover most needs.  Of course, those dominate the power demand, too.

[elfenix 34,658]

1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

Wow, some of y’all are sheltered or something, it’s like “tell me you’ve never stolen a boat without telling me you’ve never stolen a boat.”

Steal a boat during a hurricane and the owners and law enforcement aren’t around to confront you. Afterward, law enforcement is not going to have time to look for your boat until weeks later, when a shitload of boats have shifted to different marinas, and when plenty of boats have been smashed into pieces. And insurance companies are not going to dump a shitload of money into scuba divers scouring the harbor or nearby ocean bottoms looking for missing boats.

[Nueces River Rat 5,742]

2 hours ago, SydneyCarton said:

Is that not potentially partial collapse of the causeway in the background? Maybe that was what that shitty shot was trying to point out?

I mean, I assume insurance is mandatory and expensive, no?

It is if you have a mortgage/note on the property.

Insurance is expensive in any coastal region and it doesn't matter how far you live inland in some counties.  Here in Texas, you could be on the county line with an adjacent county which is not in what is called "Tier One" and your insurance can be hundreds into thousands of dollar less in annual premium if you live on the west side of that county line.  I'm in the industry and it's a conversation I have all the time now.  Especially with newbies to the area who were used to paying maybe $1500 for $500,000 home in a non weather event state like Arizona and they buy the same priced home on Padre Island at it's costing them $ 5000 or more and that is just for the homeowners policy.   Flood is easily another $1000 to $3000 or more because if they want to make sure the entire value of their home is covered, they have to get NFIP (Feds) and an Excess policy because NFIP is capped at $250K for structure and $100K for personal property.     So in Coastal Texas on the Island as of today you could easily be looking at $10k property insurance bill depending on the property and company you go with IF you can find one who will write windstorm with the policy.  It's  tad less expensive inland in those same counties, but still high as heck compared to rates in San Antonio or the Hill Country.    I have a $350,000 home and my premium was just shy of $3500 at 2% deductibles.  

Florida is screwed in many different aspects because basically the whole state and even the inland counties on the peninsula part are treated like coastal exposures because it's flat and swamp land which hardly diminishes a hurricane quickly unlike here in Texas where if one hits Corpus where I live, usually it's barely a tropical storm or even a depression by the time it hits Laredo or San Antonio and the Hill Country.  They've also lost a number of insurance companies over the past couple of years due to them going bankrupt or receivership (insurance industry term for bankruptcy) because they have some whacky regs in Florida which allow homeowners to basically get a free roof replacement when in some cases the roofs only need some spot repairs and their good to go.  The Trial Lawyers have made a killing over there for stuff like that and what companies have remained will not cover roofs over 5 years old or not at all which puts everything into their version of TWIA called Citizens.    Several of those same companies lost their shirts in the two storms that hit Louisiana in 2020.   

[Nueces River Rat 5,742]

20 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Ft. Myers Fire Chief on CNN right now, says he is not aware of any fatalities.  That would be amazing.

It absolutely would be.   But I have a feeling they will find a few in the next few days in some of those outlying areas around Ft Myers.    Considering the damage from both the flooding and wind a handful would still be remarkable.  

[Spaulding Smails 1,610]

46 minutes ago, immamac said:

If you are gonna spend that much on a generator are these diesel? I got a 12KW portable dual fuel generator on prime day for 800 dollars. It peaks at 55 amps. It'll run my entire house as long as it has fuel. 

Natural gas / propane for the Generac / Kohler whole house setups.  They do offer diesel, but those are rare for residential applications.  They're hard-plumbed to your gas service and hard wired to your panel with an ATS.  The cost jumps even more when you get into the 30-KW+ range because you're moving from air cooled to liquid-cooled.  

[markstanco 12,773]

1 hour ago, heso said:

 

 

[markstanco 12,773]

55 minutes ago, immamac said:

If you are gonna spend that much on a generator are these diesel? I got a 12KW portable dual fuel generator on prime day for 800 dollars. It peaks at 55 amps. It'll run my entire house as long as it has fuel. 

Edited September 29, 2022 by markstanco

[immamac 44,200]

As another poster said above. It’ll run everything including the central AC, but will it run the AC and a dryer and a microwave and the well all at the same time? No. But in a situation without power for extended periods having to think before using electricity is totally fine with me. 

[MNLonghornFUKM 8,963]

Ft. Myers Fire Chief on CNN right now, says he is not aware of any fatalities.  That would be amazing.

Well…the kitten from the park bench that the journalist tweeted out and didn’t save would be 1

[Francisco 2.0 32,543]

RE: how much power do you actually need for a generator.

In 2007, we had an ice storm. Lost power for 10 days.   I had a portable 5500 watt generator run my fridge, the blower for my gas home heater, the freezer, a handful of lights in the house, the DirecTV receiver, a TV, and our internet connection.

I couldn't run any other major appliances.   Gas hot water tank, so I did have that.  But it was a few miles drive into the part of town that had power, so I was able to get groceries, eat a meal at a resturant, get more fuel for the generator, etc.  It was inconvenient having to fill the tank up every 6 hours or so, and at bedtime, I just turned the generator off (and let the house go dark).  But I did manage for over a week on 5500 watts, so it can be done.

 

 

Edited September 29, 2022 by Francisco 2.0

[Antidean 200]

I installed a back feed plug in my shop and can run my portable generator (5.5kW) output through that to feed my house. The generator stays a little distance from my house to cut down on noise and I can also refuel/maintenance the generator inside my shop when needed then place it back outside.

Like others have posted, you have to be selective on what you really need during an outage.

[Dewey 3,325]

No power, no fuel pumps. Had that problem during the ice storm. Only on gas station had power and the line to get gas was ridiculous. So, you might have a generator, that's great, but if you didn't stock up on fuel. . 

[Willfully Horn 8,204]

Tampa Bay gets DRAINED by Ian. This is a Tiktok link from a guy who doesn’t know the difference between a bay and the gulf, but, damn.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRmyWoeM/

That sight would make me run for the hills, but the refill wasn’t another catastrophe.

https://apnews.com/article/hurricanes-florida-gulf-of-mexico-storms-fort-myers-398e288da8d0a081171203029bd3b124

[elfenix 34,658]

any word on if jeff made it?

[texasdago 7,753]

Yup... even the guy who sold us our generator said we probably won't want to throw a party at our house when the power is out.

Keep in mind... the benefit of the Automatic Transfer Switch is not having to deal with the transfer during severe weather or when you're not home.  Out of town for a week and the power goes out?  System takes care of it for you.  We had a sump pump that was designed to save our ass during seriously bad rain storms and the generator was able to keep it running so that water wouldn't work its way in our house... we knew that if we were out of town, we were covered.  Didn't have to ask a neighbor to run to our house to check things.  

 

Peace of mind - can't put a price on it.

[tokamak 6,685]

How loud are the Generac/Kohler whole home setups? My current solution is a tri-fuel Costco unit plugged straight into my panel but that damn thing is loud enough to wake the dead. I always feel self conscious when I’m running it and I dunno if I’d be able to listen to it for a week straight in a hurricane situation. 

[Nueces River Rat 5,742]

42 minutes ago, markstanco said:

Even with a Cat 1 or 2, the only things standing on this property other than the concrete blocks would be the generator.  

[mdmost 43,851]

 

[Baboontyme 2,875]

44 minutes ago, Willfully Horn said:

Tampa Bay gets DRAINED by Ian. This is a Tiktok link from a guy who doesn’t know the difference between a bay and the gulf, but, damn.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRmyWoeM/

That sight would make me run for the hills, but the refill wasn’t another catastrophe.

https://apnews.com/article/hurricanes-florida-gulf-of-mexico-storms-fort-myers-398e288da8d0a081171203029bd3b124

My entire team sans me is in Tampa. Same thing happened a few years ago with the last storm. I haven't heard from most of them today. 2 were in mandatory evacuation zones. Only one of the 3 I've talked to today lost power. Another colleague in the area just called it basically a non event for them. I guess we should be thankful that it avoided the more populous TB area. I'm still sick seeing these pictures of Ft. Myers and what's trickling in from Sanibel. 

@Brew any word from your friends? I am also curious about N. Captiva. Can't be good. 

[SimonBolivar 11,032]

Stealing a boat in a hurricane is a kickass new verse for "Highwayman". 

[mdmost 43,851]

 

[SquishMitten 10,493]

3 hours ago, markstanco said:

If I was the contractor who built that home, I would use that video for advertising on national television. 

Leaky doorknobs. WNB.

[Baboontyme 2,875]

Some different angles of the causeway @ :25 seconds and I think some shots of Sanibel around :47 and beyond from a chopper. 

 

[Pato del Muerto 53,332]

So my mom lived in Bonita springs in I think 2008 and I went to see her after Charlie and Dennis hit. Pulled up all of her trees and damaged the lennai screen beyond repair. Got a nice tour of ft Myers and all of its destruction, and Charlie had cut sanibel into two pieces. 
 

then I got to stay an extra day as Frances came across and shut things down. 

[Gatorubet 30,631]

1 hour ago, tokamak said:

 I always feel self conscious when I’m running it and I dunno if I’d be able to listen to it for a week straight in a hurricane situation. 

No worries. Before a week is over the hearing loss will self-correct that. 

[Brew 3,049]

38 minutes ago, Baboontyme said:

My entire team sans me is in Tampa. Same thing happened a few years ago with the last storm. I haven't heard from most of them today. 2 were in mandatory evacuation zones. Only one of the 3 I've talked to today lost power. Another colleague in the area just called it basically a non event for them. I guess we should be thankful that it avoided the more populous TB area. I'm still sick seeing these pictures of Ft. Myers and what's trickling in from Sanibel. 

@Brew any word from your friends? I am also curious about N. Captiva. Can't be good. 

No one knows anything yet. Talked to my realtor, she is in one of the neighborhoods that faces the Caloosahatchie further up river. They have significant damage, but are good. A few boats have gone across but the canals are in bad shape along with one of the bridges on Periwinkle on Sanibel being down further blocking access. Based on pictures it looks like those that weren’t direct gulf facing and that were elevated will mostly come out with cosmetic damage that can be fixed.

Biggest issue is concerns on access and what the plan for that will be as well as getting the remaining people out that need to get out. Seems to be a lot more concern for FMB and Pine Island/Matlacha as the layout of Sanibel and the building codes limit some of the openness to the elements that the others have along with just the difference in the makeup of the residents.

[Ogie Ogilthorpe 640]

Have spotty internet so haven’t been able to read how others are hoping for the best. Rode it out in Naples far enough inland No surge. All good, no power and generator died. Will wait for better internet to read up and post more

[Mrs Whiggins 13,050]

The comment made earlier about developers salivating over lots is spot on, at least according to the social buzz in Fort Meyers. Some of the older owner occupied places got leveled and I suspect the prime real estate they sat upon will not be replaced with dwellings like what was there.

[tokamak 6,685]

Yeah ain’t nobody driving across that causeway for a while

[texasdago 7,753]

1 hour ago, mdmost said:

 

Before...