The "Unprecedented Category 5 Hurricane Set To Strike" Story

TV shot of hurricane Luis from 1995.

It was an ordinary day.  Staring at the TV screen in awe of the power of the tropical storm named Irma.  Weather Channel says: POTENTIALLY CATASTROPHIC CATEGORY 5 HURRICANE IRMA HEADING TOWARD THE LEEWARD ISLANDS...PREPARATIONS SHOULD BE NEARING COMPLETION IN THE EASTERNMOST LEEWARD ISLANDS.  Scary stuff!  Back on September 7, 2015 I wrote a story about Hurricane Luis that struck the island of Sint Maarten/St. Martin in early September of 1995 as well as the islands of  Antigua, Barbuda, St. Barts and Anguilla.  The 1995 Atlantic hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 140 mph, classified as a category 4 storm, accounted for 19 deaths, left nearly 70,000 homeless and wrought roughly $3 billion in damages across the affected islands.  Hurricane Luis was the most devastating hurricane to strike the northern Leeward Islands in the 20th century.  When Carol and I began traveling to the Leeward islands in early 2000, we heard many stories about Luis and the havoc it caused.  Well, we may be in the 21st Century now, but having another KILLER storm arrive so soon after Luis is scary; REALLY SCARY.  Across the bottom of the TV screen a trailer tells the story ... LARGEST HURRICANE EVER RECORDED IN THE ATLANTIC BASIN ... UNPRECEDENTED CAT 5 HURRICANE.  

The storm Irma is immense when comparing it to the
size of the little dots on the left which are islands.

I checked my emails and just found one that read: As of now, it appears that we are in the direct path of Hurricane Irma, and our staff is busily battening down the hatches and preparing the resort to weather the storm. Due to its size, intensity and current trajectory, we expect to experience some level of impact, including potentially the loss of utilities, phones and Internet for anywhere between a few days to a few weeks. For that reason, we have set up a special U.S.-based email address, in case regular communications are temporarily interrupted.  We will keep you updated the best we can over the next several days, and greatly appreciate all your thoughts and prayers!  During the past fifteen years we have made friends on many of the islands in the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea.  On the island of Sint Maarten, Barbara and Deidrick Cannegieter have become good friends that we communicate with on an ongoing basis and visit every year when we head to Sint Maarten.  We hope that they will make it through this historic storm safely.  Irma's sustained winds have intensified over the last few hours to 185 mph.  Hopefully all island residents have had the chance to prepare for this storm.   As of Tuesday afternoon the Princess Juliana International Airport on Sint Maarten has closed until the storm passes.  So where will the storm head?  Too many different scenarios on different TV stations to predict.  Carol and I are scheduled to head to our local travel agency on Friday to pick up our information and paperwork for an upcoming trip to Nassau in the Bahamas.  I guess the best thing I can report about that trip is that we purchased travel insurance when we originally scheduled the trip a few months ago.  Possible that an airplane could get us to the island by October, but will the resort where we are scheduled to visit still be able to accommodate us.  Another UPDATE has flashed across the bottom of the TV screen.  STORM SURGE: The combination of a life-threatening storm surge and large breaking waves will raise water levels by as much as 7 to 11 feet above normal tide levels along the coasts of the extreme northern Leeward Islands within the hurricane warning area near and to the north of the center of Irma.  I'm sure I will be glued to the TV screen for the next day or two, checking on my friends on Facebook and praying for the best outcome for all concerned.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary day.

PS - As I finished this story I had a few posts added to my Facebook page from friends in Sint Maarten/St. Martin.  All were magically eerie!!  Purely, the calm before the storm.  

From Barbara

Taken from a camera in Philipsburg, Sint Maarten

Another from Barbara and Dee's back yard.

Beach time before the storm.