Looks like Princess Juliana got a taste of her own medicine as Hurricane Irma gave her a good blast, from the reports it looks really bad

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4858858/Princess-Juliana-Airport-destroyed-Hurricane-Irma.html

I hope it cleans up well and wish them the best

So sad.  I tried to fly out of there today, and the planes (even the 320 airbus) blew over and could not possibly take flight.  I wish them well, and hope they soon recover.

Stan

The hurricane destroyed the Maho Beach webcam. Incredibly scary footage 

It's tempting to load up our sims and 'play around' with our live weather programs. I feel so lucky that I'm able to do so sitting in my apartment with a nice cup of coffee without worrying about my life or livelihood, like so many of those in the Caribbean are. It's nice to see JetBlue step up, upping schedules and and capping flights out of Florida at $99- so much more meaningful than if their CEO donated $1 million, a tiny fraction of his net worth, after the fact (*cough* United *cough*). 

http://www.businessinsider.com/hurricane-irma-evacuation-jetblue-discounts-flights-99-dollars-2017-9

 

EDIT: DIdn't see that the video was linked in OP's article. Anyway, a direct embedded link is better. 

 

1 hour ago, hamoody said:

 

It's tempting to load up our sims and fly

 

 

? 

 

Just no words to witness what I've seen.  They will rebuild with aid I hope.  I went to that part of the Caribbean in 1990 and it was a heavenly place to stay.  Sad to see the destruction of an area of nice civil people.

John

This one looks like it may slide to the right and into Florida, not good, my parents have a house there.

My old housemate from Houston used to live with me when he was living in New Zealand for School. He did an awesome job in Houston delivering supplies to people by boats and 4WD trucks. He ended up nicking his leg walking through that water and infected pretty much his entire leg. He sent a picture and it looked really bad but it seems to be clearing up now. Goes to show how bad that nasty water can be.

My brother lives in Homestead. Talked to him yesterday and he is staying home to ride it out.  I tried to talk sense to him. Stubborn dude.  

SXM's Maho Beach is *gone*.  Eroded away.

Here's the current view of the beach from the former site of the Sunset Cafe looking across to the heavily damaged Hotel Sonesta...

Based on this, I can't imagine the destruction in the places where the structures were more basic.

31 minutes ago, PATCO LCH said:

My brother lives in Homestead. Talked to him yesterday and he is staying home to ride it out.  I tried to talk sense to him. Stubborn dude.  

I hope he, at least, lives in cinder block house.  Might be a good idea for you to send him videos of the last hurricane that swept through that swept away so many homes...Wilma, was it? 

He's lived down there for 25 years. At 57 you have good sense or you don't. He retired from the Coast Guard and currently works for TSA at KMIA.

I remember when I visited Guam back in 92 how heavily reinforced the buildings were to withstand the typhoons that regularly sweep the island.  It's one reason the cost of living is so high there.  In Phoenix we once had sustained winds over 100 mph in 1996 (115 mph at Deer Valley Airport) that lasted thirty minutes, category 2 in strength.  Thousands of homes were damaged with loss roof shingles and tiles, trees uprooted, dozens of aircraft damaged.  The storm was caused by two mesocyclones that merged over the western part of the city sweeping in from opposite directions, then rotating around a central low pressure area.

 Our insured damage was over 1 billion dollars.  It remains our costliest storm in history.  I narrowly missed getting caught in my car in the storm.   Fortunately I left work early when I looked out my office window and saw the peculiar cloud formations that showed turbulent air aloft, something my meteorology course in college made me recognize.  I made it home with five minutes to spare, the visibility dropped to yards during the height of the storm.

The next day when I left for work, debris was piled high in the medians of our major roadways.  Power was out for days in some parts of the community.

I once flew into the fringes of a tropical storm when leaving Tampa one year back in '99.  Florida lucked out back then, it was forecast to hit us as a major hurricane, our hotel took evacuees, but then it fizzled and veered over the Caribbean.

John

2 hours ago, Cactus521 said:

I remember when I visited Guam back in 92 how heavily reinforced the buildings were to withstand the typhoons that regularly sweep the island.  It's one reason the cost of living is so high there.  In Phoenix we once had sustained winds over 100 mph in 1996 (115 mph at Deer Valley Airport) that lasted thirty minutes, category 2 in strength.  Thousands of homes were damaged with loss roof shingles and tiles, trees uprooted, dozens of aircraft damaged.  The storm was caused by two mesocyclones that merged over the western part of the city sweeping in from opposite directions, then rotating around a central low pressure area.

 Our insured damage was over 1 billion dollars.  It remains our costliest storm in history.  I narrowly missed getting caught in my car in the storm.   Fortunately I left work early when I looked out my office window and saw the peculiar cloud formations that showed turbulent air aloft, something my meteorology course in college made me recognize.  I made it home with five minutes to spare, the visibility dropped to yards during the height of the storm.

The next day when I left for work, debris was piled high in the medians of our major roadways.  Power was out for days in some parts of the community.

I once flew into the fringes of a tropical storm when leaving Tampa one year back in '99.  Florida lucked out back then, it was forecast to hit us as a major hurricane, our hotel took evacuees, but then it fizzled and veered over the Caribbean.

John

Ha! It's funny you mentioned Deer Valley. Being from Mississippi and the storms we get I figured I'd seen it all until I flight trained at DVT. Everything from the Virga's over PHX to steering clear of rotors in north AZ around Payson, some of my most memorable weather related moments have been in Arizona not to mention the flights that got cancelled due to density altitude. Nevertheless gorgeous location and great flying experiences especially Sedona! (Sorry, didnt mean to hijack post) So sad what happened in  SXM, thoughts and prayers go out to all those involved.

1 minute ago, JGreen5278 said:

Ha! It's funny you mentioned Deer Valley. Being from Mississippi and the storms we get I figured I'd seen it all until I flight trained at DVT. Everything from the Virga's over PHX to steering clear of rotors in north AZ around Payson, some of my most memorable weather related moments have been in Arizona not to mention the flights that got cancelled due to density altitude. Nevertheless gorgeous location and great flying experiences especially Sedona! (Sorry, didnt mean to hijack post)

No worries, a couple of simmers here trained at Deer Valley, which is one of the busiest, if not the busiest, GA airports in the country it's always in a battle with Van Nuys in CA.  Prescott also sees a lot of flight training.  I took my light sport lessons at Falcon Field in Mesa.  I remember one of my training flights, I flew over the Renaissance Fair in Apache Junction with a blimp about a thousand feet below me, couldn't miss that traffic and I could see the crowds in the Fair.

In Arizona the biggest GA challenge are the summertime thermals, which are strong on commercial jets and much stronger on GA aircraft.  Even in the spring, in clear air, I would get bounced around pretty hard in my two seat trainer.  The instructor just told me to ride them out, but I got caught in them in a couple of landings, harder than I wished although the aircraft took it in stride.

Storm wise, when one of our monsoon storms hits central Phoenix, Sky Harbor shuts down since the winds easily top 60mph.  Happens several times during the summer.  Flights either wait it out or divert to Tucson or (if lucky LOL), Vegas.

John

Greggerm, do you have any more pictures of Sunset bar and Driftwood bar, if there's anything left of it?

 

5 hours ago, Cactus521 said:

I remember when I visited Guam back in 92 how heavily reinforced the buildings were to withstand the typhoons that regularly sweep the island.  It's one reason the cost of living is so high there. 

It is the same in New Zealand, the resent storm that hit Houston when you look at the numbers we get 3 to 4 storms of exactly that same size every year. For us a storm that size we would still go to work even when winds are up to 70 to 80 mph. We are designed to withstand winds, rain and earthquakes, but also everything in New Zealand is double to triple the price compared to other places to maintain standards.