Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Hurricane Irma

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
This was great, thanks for the video!
Feels like the Tesla was a good option, especially since the number of ratio of Tesla per Supercharger in the state seems pretty good. Better than California at least. I can only imagine what a major quake and evacuation would be like out here.
You did have to deal with downed Superchargers longer than your neighbors that dealt with down gas stations. But if you are ok with waiting a bit longer before coming back (say you like to have running water and sewage), the Tesla would be fine there as well.
Is that fair @SUMD ?

There really isn't any scenario I can think of where there would be an emergency evacuation for a California earthquake. The only time anyone would need to bug out with an earthquake would be an offshore quake from an upthrust fault that caused a tsunami. California's faults are mostly sideslip which don't produce tsunamis. The only place where California has a tsunami generating fault is at the southern edge of the Juan de Fuca plate which extends from about Eureka, CA on up off Vancouver Island.

A tsunami from a distant earthquake ends up being little more than a fast, unusual tide in harbors on the west coast (as what happened from the quake in Japan in 2011). My father stood on the dock in Morro Bay and watched the tsunami roll in, along with everyone at the Coast Guard station there. He said it was like watching a 12 hour tide cycle in about an hour.

Tsunamis are dangerous along shallow coastal areas. In western North America the continental shelf is at the coast, so the water gets very deep very fast. Monterey Bay has a canyon is so deep oceanographers are just now beginning to find the bizarre creatures living at the bottom of the bay. The continental shelf extends out a couple hundred miles from the east coast of the US. It's a problem for submarines operating out of eastern US bases.

After an earthquake fires sometimes break out due to ruptured gas lines and such. But a fire like the Great San Francisco fire is pretty much impossible today. Buildings are a lot more fire resistant and fire fighting is much better than is was in 1906. Evacuation of some neighborhoods might be required after a major quake, but people would usually be moved to relatively close neighborhoods.

The biggest mass movement of people the west has ever seen happened this year. That was the eclipse in August. A friend from Houston was here that day and he was marveling at the news stories of epic traffic jams on Oregon highways. He's seen those sorts of traffic jams for hurricanes in Houston and he commented we just don't have any experience with sudden mass movements of people at once.

Western emergency management people just don't plan for those sorts of things because they don't happen. There are volcanoes that are a threat, but Cascade volcanoes give a fair bit of warning when lava begins to move. We don't have coastal emergencies that require people to move inland, and other disasters like wildfires can lead to evacuations, those are rural areas and small towns.

It looks like Puerto Rico got hit hard from Maria. Fortunately it looks likely Maria is not going to make landfall in North America, or if it does, it will be weakened. Three major hurricanes and a major earthquake in North America in a little over a month. Pretty intense late summer. Let's hope the drama is over!
 
Agreed that a California mass evacuation is unlikely, but always good to be prepared and planning for it. Nature is not the only one that can cause such an event...

As for the eclipse, I absolutely agree it was an example and a test out West. I mean, they ran out of portapottys...

Let's keep focusing on our fellow humans in need right now.
 
Agreed that a California mass evacuation is unlikely, but always good to be prepared and planning for it. Nature is not the only one that can cause such an event...

As for the eclipse, I absolutely agree it was an example and a test out West. I mean, they ran out of portapottys...

Let's keep focusing on our fellow humans in need right now.

Hopefully we will have fully self driving cars and boring tunnels by the time the next big one strikes.
 
East central Florida seems to be returning to normal. FEMA has been picking up yard waste every day. I was without power for six days. It will be a while before I can get my soffits repaired.

I was in Seminole county today, and noticed that some neighborhoods are still flooded. The water level in Lake George is quite high.

I hope the Southeastern United States doesn't get another hurricane this season.

I appreciate all the helpful posts here regarding the path of Irma. The posts were a big help to me. Thank you everyone!