• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Hurricane Maria - Puerto Rico without power and cleanup underway

A Cat 6 designation is really meaningless. Anything Cat 5 or higher is pretty much doom:

According to Robert Simpson, there are no reasons for a Category 6 on the Saffir–Simpson Scale because it is designed to measure the potential damage of a hurricane to human-made structures. Simpson stated that "...when you get up into winds in excess of 155 mph (249 km/h) you have enough damage if that extreme wind sustains itself for as much as six seconds on a building it's going to cause rupturing damages that are serious no matter how well it's engineered."
 

methane47

Member
I feel really terrible for Dominica.
I am here in St Maarten and we are recovering from Irma... And Dominica just sent aid to us and their prime minister came over yesterday to show his support for the island.. but now he's stuck in StMaarten and can't get back to Dominica.

Terrible situation
 

MaulerX

Member
Does a CAT5 hurricane can destroy concrete structures?


The one saving grace about PR is that everyone pretty much has a concrete house so peoples homes will hold up well. It's the trees, cars power lines, debris, floods and no power that's going to be the main destruction.
 

Iolo

Member
Umm from experience I will say yes, but not likely.
Concrete structures stay standing but windows and roofs can't be heavily affected

Which is why I don't understand why Cat 5 is the highest. Clearly higher speed hurricanes could do even more damage, God forbid.
 

Kusagari

Member
There's a lot of variance in the Cat 5's we've seen though.

Is concrete really fine if you have peak Irma or Wilma on top of you with 185 mph winds?
 

Velcro Fly

Member
Size matters way more.

Something massive and slightly weaker will be way more devastating than something smaller but with a very intense inner core.
 
Size matters way more.

Something massive and slightly weaker will be way more devastating than something smaller but with a very intense inner core.

Yeah more devastating on a large scale but tell that to the unlucky ones close to an intense inner core.

It's like what you see with tornadoes. Sure the damage isn't as wide spread but the buildings that are hit are just gone.
 

Xe4

Banned
Can't beleive another Cat 5 is going to hit Puerto Rico and adjacent islands so soon. Stay safe Caribbean-GAF
 

GhaleonEB

Member
Well, fuck. I was wondering just yesterday if it was going to gain strength like Irma did. But I didn't think it actually would, for some reason. Wow. :(
 
My mum is from Dominica. It's very bad. People's roofs are being torn off, including one of her aunt's. The hospital roof is gone. The Prime Minister had to be rescued from his house by the police because his roof was torn off. My mum's side of the family is in panic mode. We feel so helpless...
 

vonStirlitz

Unconfirmed Member
Does a CAT5 hurricane can destroy concrete structures?
Yes. In multiple ways. A Cat 5 has the aame kinetic force as the hitoshima blast.

In the BVI, a number of concrete walls were ripped down by the wind, some were pummeled by debris, roofs, fencing, landslides. The walls are attacked in multiple ways.

Gets worse. I know of one case where the outside balcony was ripped off. Ripped off so hard it pulled and shifted the house off its foundations. It was built on a mountainside.

I saw a photo of a wooden fencing stake that had pierced and was sticking out of a palm tree. These trees are thick and that fence post was sticking through it like cupids arrow.

Cat 5 is vicious.
 

pestul

Member
My mum is from Dominica. It's very bad. People's roofs are being torn off, including one of her aunt's. The hospital roof is gone. The Prime Minister had to be rescued from his house by the police because his roof was torn off. My mum's side of the family is in panic mode. We feel so helpless...
I'm so sorry man. I hope they can ride it out. Are they getting the back of the eye wall now?
 

pestul

Member
The Prime Minister of Dominica is reporting complete devastation of the island on Twitter. It's still ongoing.. I'm scared what we'll see at daybreak. :/
 

Tubie

Member
Maria is coming to hit the islands Irma didn't hit as badly.

This is so fucked up. PR was even sending supplies and support to those islands gravely affected by Irma, and now this monster is coming just 2 weeks after Irma.
 
But a Cat 5 is not actually "total devastation" and that it could be worse, so they need to re-calibrate the scale if that's the criteria.

It really is. Only 3 cat. 5's have ever hit the United States, and those were devastating. Andrew in 1992 was the last cat. 5 to hit the USA, and it was.....devastating. If Irma hit the US as a cat. 5, like it did to the Caribbean, Florida would have looked like this.


virginislands_oli_2017253.jpg
 

mo60

Member
Is the spaghetti projection showing that it will hit the US?

Can't believe another CAT5 is happening.

It comes kinda close to the US eventually in some models but it is not certain. No one knows what will happen about a week from now. Most models are showing Jose potentially having an influence on Maria's track about a week from now.
 

kendrid

Banned
I feel really terrible for Dominica.
I am here in St Maarten and we are recovering from Irma... And Dominica just sent aid to us and their prime minister came over yesterday to show his support for the island.. but now he's stuck in StMaarten and can't get back to Dominica.

Terrible situation

Dominica is such an amazing island. We were there last year and I was never expecting this:
Rainforest hike by Kevin, on Flickr

or this:
TiTou Gorge by Kevin, on Flickr

After seeing photos of what happened to the Virgin Islands it is sad to know even more destruction is coming.
 
What the hell. I stopped checking the NHC website for a couple days and come back to this? I pray that people in Dominica will be safe. I have friends in PR who missed Irma, but this one is not looking so good.
I hope everyone whose in Maria's path stays safe :(
 
But a Cat 5 is not actually "total devastation" and that it could be worse, so they need to re-calibrate the scale if that's the criteria.
Category 5 winds are equivalent to roughly an EF4 tornado. One of the specific damage indicators for that intensity is trees being stripped bare, as well as ~100% of non-reinforced structures damaged. That's exactly what we got with Irma. The scale relates to building codes and construction of decades past and in poorer countries, too. It was effective total destruction of all natural and man-made objects alike in the path of strongest winds.

An EF5 at 200ish+ mows the trees off the face of the planet, for a comparison of what's worse. No hurricane has pulled off something that extreme, so I guess technically we could add another category!
Well, fuck. I was wondering just yesterday if it was going to gain strength like Irma did. But I didn't think it actually would, for some reason. Wow. :(
This is a banner year for studying rapid intensification for all the wrong reasons, unfortunately. Here's where the "climate change is a factor" part comes in.
 

El Txou

Member
This year has been terrible. The amount of destruction in the caribbean has been very disheartening. All but my best wishes for Dominica, a Cat 5 hurricane... that is just something else. Here in PR, where I live, we are bunkering down right now. We can only hope for the best case scenario, while we prepare for the worst case scenario.
 
Top Bottom