infinite improbability

Holy crap, it's "The Big One"

Pretty much as long as I can remember, I've been hearing about how we're overdue for a direct hit by a hurricane--the last direct hit was 1921. Well, it looks like we're about to get hit by "the Big One" that we've been afraid of, and it's not going to be good. We're looking at the barrier islands, which are little more than a foot above sea level getting hit by a storm surge of upwards of 10 feet, which means that some of the most expensive real estate in Florida may not be there by the time day breaks on Saturday morning. Pinellas county is likely going to be turned into an island, and downtown Tampa will be submerged. The worry isn't so much the windspeed, but with the shallow Gulf of Mexico and the even shallower Tampa Bay, you end up with major storm surge. Anyway, it's not good. Not good at all.