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Geek CAM watching Hurricane Floyd in South Florida 189

Posted by Hemos from the it's-better-then-the-weather-channel dept.
Gregory F. Maxwell gave us the link-up to a South Florida Geekcam. The house has been evacuated, apparently, but the Cam must go on. I'm looking forward to watching Floyd make landfall.Update: 09/14 11:31 by H :There's a back-up site up. And for record, I regret damage done to property and life-but the power of Nature is still amazing.
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Geek CAM watching Hurricane Floyd in South Florida More

Geek CAM watching Hurricane Floyd in South Florida

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  • Old pic (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    That was the pic taken right before we shut down the computers and moved them out. A few hours later, I tossed the wintv card from Ralph's computer (in that pic) into a sacrifical box for webcamming.

  • Hurricane Slashdot (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The cam may survive Floyd, but ...

  • That is NOT funny. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Please don't make fun of Mother Nature's destructive forces. At least pay some respect to all the people in SE Florida who lived through Andrew in 1992. And Hugo in the Carolinas 10 years ago, etc. This posting is akin to saying "Let me post a webcam to see your house being blown away by a tornado in the Midwest." Pretty sick for slashdot. Jose C. Lacal jose.lacal@volks-pc.org
  • This link [wtoctv.com] shows the potential flooding that could occur if a Cat 5 hurricane hit Savannah. Most of you probably never have been to Savannah, but it's one of the oldest cities in the United States, and a great place to live. It would be horrible thing to happen to that area.

  • Please use the Mirror (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Sorry guys. I didn't expect this would actually get posted! :) It's only on a 256Kb/s T1 line. :P Please use http://z.treco.net/~greg/ (The pictures are broken because it's become so slow that it is getting caught in the middle of a copy.

  • Wrong... (Ignorance) (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    That is rare...that recent drought that helped fuel the fires (slong with suspected arsons) was rare here. Perhaps you're thinking of Florida. I think living in a place where a powerful hurricane hits like once every 20-30+ years isn't so bad. Most hurricanes get close to florida but steer north and hit North Carolina or states in that area, or just spin off back into the atlantic. Rarely does one come through and not get directed northward. Even rarer does a bordering level 5 hurricane even come.

    I'm sure there are 100% natural disaster laces on Earth (many places in Europe probably), but I don't see most of the world living there. Do you? Is everyone stupid? No, people like different climates, areas, cultures...there's things like jobs in which they have to live in certain areas...perhaps they like the amusement parks, perhaps they like a college, perhaps they're a large percentage of the world population that can't afford to move wherever the hell they want.

    It annoys me how ignorant some of the middle/upper middle/upper class pseudo-intellectual s on slashdot are. From thinking laisezz faire capitalism is the best thing for the world ever, to thinking they're the smartest people because they happen to be living in a place not being hit by a natural disaster. I guess it's what to epxect from people who's life experience is limited to computer screens, their suburban neighborhoods, occassionally going into the city (or often) and just ignoring the homeless people and avoiding driving by the ghettos...when the news focuses on news for the middle class...stocks stocks stocks. Few pieces about world event a and b, then more stocks!

  • Currently, I am ignoring the evacuation orders, as nothing much will actually happen for another 10 hours or so, but after that...

    I think the key word there was 'currently'. I'd assume that this fellow will have the good sense to bail out of there at some point between the time of his post, and 10 hours or so after that, when it starts to hit. If he doesn't, I won't even discuss that. Let's just hope he has the good sense to realize that while it may be fine to ignore evacuation orders for a bit (perhaps to stave off looters?), it's certainly not the most intelligent thing to ignore them during the storm.

  • No...but it is funny that people in California keep building houses where they know there are mud slides and wild fires. Now Tornados can spawn about anywhere...I was in a couple when I lived in Pierre South Dakota and on the Reservation in South Dakota. Tornados are pretty random, they can be on the water, in Salt Lake City or Miami, or trailer row in Bufu OK.

    But at what point do people just flat start ignoring history and build in areas that are just plain stupid? It's not just Florida. I saw on the news that 90 percent of the homes damaged by floods in the south eastern US damage the homes of the same people year after year after year, and the Federal Flood Insurance is finally going to force people to move.

    How stupid is that?
  • This is eerily reminiscent of the bit about the telegraph signal in On the Beach [imdb.com].
  • Probably very few people here (I number among the "many") have ever seen a major hurricane make a close pass. Here in the northeast, the only hurricanes I've seen were David (1979), Gloria (1985), and Bob (1991). Each of these were fairly weak by the time they reached us. If Floyd does come anywhere close to the location of the webcam, there will be a lot of opportunities to see what this kind of storm can really do.

    The truth of the matter is that a major hurricane can hit anywhere along the east coast and the Gulf of Mexico, and in the northeast, if a major hurricane does hit, it can carry strong winds a considerable distance inland (because such a storm is invariably moving very fast -- 40 MPH forward speed or greater -- and simply doesn't have time to weaken, and furthermore the right hand side of such a storm has its winds enhanced by the forward motion of the storm). Hazel in 1954 went inland at South Carolina and screamed north at 50 MPH or so, so it had been inland for 500 miles or thereabouts by the time it reached New York's latitude. Nonetheless, it spawned a wind gust of over 100 MPH at the official observing station (probably Central Park), which was well east of the center. The 1938 hurricane was cat 3 (still a major hurricane) when it reached the coast, and Blue Hill had a peak wind (1 minute, which is not a gust) of 183 MPH in that storm!

    Anyway, this storm might nail (to some degree) the entire east coast. If the storm does hit hard, and if the webcam survives, it might help warn other people what to really expect from a major storm. It's weakening a bit (down to 125 knots from 135 last night), but not enough to matter. The one piece of good news for Florida is that if it is a coast hugger the coast will be hit with the less severe west side of the storm. However, it's an absolutely gigantic system, so even a moderately near miss will cause problems. It's not a tiny system like Andrew was.
  • Actually, even in the heart of the tornado belt, any one location is struck on average once every 2000 years. The repeat frequency for large hail or destructive wind is, of course, much more frequent. However, the important point is that there's no location within that zone that's particularly more or less prone to devastating effects.

    Residents of barrier islands and the immediate coast in hurricane country (the entire east coast, in other words) are in quite a different situation. Significant storm surge isn't as rare as that, and what's more, there are well-understood reasons why those locations are much more vulnerable than even a few miles inland. Building somewhere that any competent meteorologist or structural engineer can tell you is a sitting duck for a fairly common kind of storm is asking for trouble.

    Before people talk about Homestead and Andrew, let me point out that Homestead was really at ground zero for a particularly devastating storm; that quite a few well-constructed buildings did survive; and that there was evidence of a previously unknown phenomenon (extreme wind gusts resembling microbursts in the eyewall) that is hard to defend against by any means, and that really is very localized and random.

    Storm surge affects a much greater frontage of shore, and is far more devastating than even a hurricane's rain and wind. There's also a simple defense against it -- just don't build anything close to certain kinds of shoreline that you're not willing to have destroyed every so often. Nothing will really stop a storm surge other than distance. Winter storms also cause destructive surges from Cape Hatteras north, so there's no excuse for excessive development too close to the northern shoreline (there's also less of it, because it's less desirable, and because winter storms are much more common).

    It's not only hurricanes that are an issue -- anyone who builds a house in a known floodplain, or close to a volcano that might be active, or in an obvious mudslide channel is also being pretty silly, when it's not hard to choose a much safer location nearby.

    Meanwhile the storm is still tracking to the left of the forecasts. Check out ne.weather and sci.geo.meteorology for a lot of discussion on it. It's starting to turn (seemingly fairly decisively finally), but it's going to be an awfully close shave at best.
  • Can you or I do a single damn thing to stop this? No.

    You're right; it isn't a game. It isn't "funny". We aren't taking pleasure in other people's misfortune.

    We are commenting and "coolifying" the awesome forces of nature. After this is over, video footage taken of the hurricane will be all over TV programs, news reports and web sites and people will be saying things like, "Oooh, ahhh," because they're commenting on *nature*. You must think storm chasers are the scum of the earth, taking pleasure and even making a living off of forces that invariably ruin peoples lives! How dare they!

    To say "stop saying nature is cool because people are going to get hurt!" is stupid. Stop whining. You're not helping anybody.
  • Why? They chose to live there then. They choose to live there today. They get to live with the results of their decisions just like the rest of us. Fools they might be, but that in no way entitles them to respect from me.

  • Move a sailboat over 400 miles, in heavy seas, in under 10 hours? Get the picture?
  • Ditka vs. a hurricane

    Ahhhh..... Ditka

  • that we get (I live in Houston) over the earthquakes that California gets. At least with a hurricane you know it's coming and can choose to leave with the important things(friends and family) intact.

  • Adventurous geeks setting up a last-ditch webcam in the wake of an approaching storm is something I can relate to, and definately brings the seriousness of the whole storm closer to home for me.

  • Florida is a nice place, but it gets hit every freaking year by hurricanes. If you can't afford to have all of your shit destroyed every year, DON'T FREAKING LIVE THERE!

    You obviously don't live in Florida, nor do you pay attention to the news. Out of the 20 years that I've been living in Central Florida, only one or two hurricanes have actually made landfall. Other than that, it's just been a lot of wind and rain. Maybe a tornado or two over the years. But hurricanes do NOT hit us every year.

    At least we can predict where they're going to fall, and make our way out of here safely. Places like California are much worse-- when was the last time you had a week's advance notice of an earthquake? What about Tornado Alley?

  • >Everyone has to live somewhere. I've been looking
    >for the perfect place to live. Something with no
    >hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, etc. Haven't
    >found it yet. You always have at least one thing >to make your day a bummer. I live on the coast of >Texas. Hurricanes and pollution are our big
    >things(and mosquitoes the size of small
    >children). But don't knock a person because they
    >choose to live somewhere. Florida's pretty nice,
    >if it weren't for the hurricane thing. As far as
    >I can tell, that's their only disaster-prone
    >item.

    You could always try somewhere in New England or Canada's maritime provinces. I, myself, live in New Brunswick. Sure, you'll get the occasional winter snowstorm, but on the whole it's a very peaceful part of the world. Plus, the beer is fantastic. :)

    Sorry for the offtopic post.
  • Parc was just wondering about relatively calm places for him/herself to live. I never suggested moving any signifigant amount of people here. I can see how my post was ambiguous, though...

    I'll grant you the Ice Storm reference, though. However, it was a *very* rare event. I doubt we'll see more than two or three such storms in the next fifty years.

    If nothing else, Slashdot is showing me the value of clearly forming my thoughts. :)
  • Located in Lake Worth,FL. 10th Ave & Congress, pretty much. Right now it's too bright out to see anything, but give it a few hours. We went shopping yesterday, didn't see any fistfights. The most violence was inflicted upon my mate who kept screaming "hysteria" at me, by me. Our camera is pointing out the westward window in the computer room. As of noon, nothing much happening but a lot of wind. A seed head from the chefflara tree out front fell down, but that's it. ungulate.net/floyd [ungulate.net]

  • Oh, by the way, just to provide some additional context: I'm in Columbia, SC, which got worked over by Hugo and is now squarely on the projected path of Floyd.

    You guys 'n' gals have a nice day.

  • "Why is the Space Center in Florida again?"

    I've read discussion elsewhere that the reason it's in Florida is that Kennedy needed to get a number of Southern votes from Congress in order to get the space program started. Note that Houston is where the Command/Control center is. The most logical place to put it is in Southern California, where there is rarely anything like weather; you'll note that this is where the Space Shuttle lands. But political necessity intervened, so Florida it is.

    mahlen

    Progress might have been all right once, but it's gone on too long.
    --Ogden Nash (1902-1971)
  • You might be amazed at the Linux presence in Wilmington.

    Linux Hardware Solutions was there for almost three years, now it's an East Coast office for VA Linux Systems (we joined forces last spring). So until just afew months ago the 2nd largest Linux system vendor was in Wilmington. :-)

    I'm a UNC-W alumnus, and another UNC-W grad works here (there) as well.

    These days I split time between Sunnyvale and Wilmington, unfortunately I find myself out here for this storm, but some friends that live on the beach will be staying with my family.


    Of course that only provides a limited degree of comfort. I just wish this storm would push out to sea, quickly...


    --Kit

  • OK, here I sit in beautiful Silicon Valley while my wife and kids are in southeast NC preparing for what might be a significant weather event. I was there a couple weeks ago for Dennis, which (fortunately) was pretty wimpy for us. The people up the coast of NC and in VA got pounded for days by a weakening storm. Had it moved through quickly it would have been no big deal, but it got hung up for a while.


    Is this funny? No. Interesting? Definitely. hurricanes are as much a part of life on the southeast coast as tornadoes in the midwest, earthquakes in the west and snow in the north. You would be hard pressed to pick an area that doesn't have some uncontrolled risk to contend with.


    Having grown up in coastal North Carolina hurricanes are a fact of life. Fortunately no one I know has experienced significant loss of life or property in the past 40 years or so. My great-grandfather lost three beach houses to Hazel in the 50's, but since then the only real damage was a tree on one aunts house from Fran in '96.


    My house in Wilmington is about 4 miles from the beach, my wife is in the process of having it boarded up and packing the kids for a trip further inland if Floyd should turn more to the north than projected. For selfish reasons I certainly hope that the track remains as forecast and follows closely what Hugo did a few years ago. There are signs of weakening, hopefully that trend will continue as well.


    As far as FEMA money, I think they need to institute a 3 strikes rule. If you can't afford proper insurance how can you afford a house on the beach? An empty lot on Wrightsville Beach (the location of Geek Week last spring) recently sold for over $800K. It was less than 1/4 acre. The Geek Week house is on the market for well over $1M if anyone is interested. Those people certainly don't need to get a handout to repair their second or third home.


    I'll quit babbling for now...

    --Kit

  • hehe our webcam was very high priority :) im still flipping out that my bedroom is on slashdot :), but anyway, i think it was a cool thing to do... i home my amiga's are alright...
  • I've got friends and acquantances who stand a real good chance of loosing their homes to the storm surge projected on Florida's coasts.

    Hrm. *checks sympathy guage* Nope, nothing registering. *taps guage* Nope, still nothing.

    Florida is a nice place, but it gets hit every freaking year by hurricanes. If you can't afford to have all of your shit destroyed every year, DON'T FREAKING LIVE THERE!

    You do have a choice. It may not be a palatable choice, especially considering how nice Florida is most of the time, but no one is forcing you to live there.

    You're like the people who build their houses on a floodplain and then complain every spring when their houses are full of water. Duh...

    Anyhow... The point of this posting wasn't to belittle the poor schmucks who are going to get pounded by Floyd; it was to give the rest of us a chance to watch a big hurricane from the safety of our computer chairs, without having to watch Bob the weatherman being blown around while babbling inanities about how strong the storm is.

    --
    A host is a host from coast to coast...

  • Live with it.
  • Other names I can think of..some of these may not exactly be PC, but what the heck, my karma's too high anyways.......
    • Hurricane FEMA Will Be Bankrupt
    • Hurricane Better-Y'all-Than-Me
    • Hurricane You're-nuts-to-camp-it-out
    • Hurricane Jur-ass-has-had-it Park
    • Hurricane Movie Rights
    • Hurricane RUN FOR IT
    • Hurricane What-do-you-mean-I-can't-go-east-on-Interstate-16?
    • Hurricane So-Much-For-Disney-World
    • Hurricane Leave-the-Windows-box-behind, I-need-room-for-my-Linux-stuff
    • Hurricane What-do-you-mean-Florida-houses-don't-have-basemen ts??
    • Hurricane Quit-laughing-because-the-tornadoes-will-be-spawne d-hundreds-of-miles-inland
    • Hurricane Look-on-the-bright-side, the-drought-will-be-over-soon
    • Hurricane Maybe-now-I-can-afford-some-land-in-Florida
    • Hurricane Actuary's Nightmare
    • Hurricane Category WHAT?????
    • Hurricane This-is-the-last-time-I-use-an-el-cheapo-travel-ag ency-for-booking-my-Disney-vacation
    • Hurricane Fidel-Castro, will-you-please-quit-laughing?
    • Hurricane thank-God-I-bought-plywood-futures
    • Hurricane why-can't-they-hit-Washington-D.C.-instead?

  • the perfect place to live imnho would be oregon, it may be dull, it may be full of retires, and it may have more than it's share of stoners, but damn if the weather isnt nice, especially in southern oregon, my area.
  • The wise words of this very experienced fellow are always worth reading, especially if you're facing the sailboat owner's predicament:

    http://www.yachtsurvey.com/hurricane_season_1999 .htm

    D

    ----
  • Safety isn't everything.

    Just tell me you really wouldn't want to live here:

    http://www.amazing.com/david/dream-house/rambla- pacifico/

    Yes, someone bought it -- and for more than the asking price, I reckon.

    D

    ----

  • Shut up! (Score:1)

    by Xar ( 11113 )
    Did it ever occur to any of you who are bitching about this being distasteful that the "poor guy who's being exploited, and who's house is going to get destroyed" is the one who sent the link to Rob?
  • My thoughts go out to those about to get pounded as well. Best of luck, and be safe (get outta there before the damn thing hits, and to hell with the boat/house/etc!)

    In an ideal world, one would sail the boat out of harms way before hurricane season starts, then come back after it is over. Unfortunately, most jobs prohibit people from leading that kind of nomadic existence, however ideallic and (in terms of property loss at least) practical.

    I do find it refreshing that at least one geek in Florida can face that kind of impending doom with enough of a sense of humor to set up a Linux webcame, point the thing into the face of danger, and leave the box running. Sure beats the usual news drivel laced with insincere and trite rhetoric of empathy for those suffering while capitalizing shamelessly on their plight. If someone who lives there can laugh in the face of destruction, who the hell are the rest of us to wax judgemental?
  • I agree! I don't know what annoys me more -- people with no sense of humor who flame webcams, /., and anyone who dares find the advent of a major storm interesting, or those with no sense of empathy or concern for those about to have their lives turned upside down by a terrible act of nature. Neither are people I'd be in a hurry to invite home for dinner.

    The boat thing hits particularly close to home as I have a friend who is, at this moment, somewhere on Lake Eire or in the Erie canal, sailing toward Florida with the goal of living there (aboard his boat). I live in an apartment building in Chicago, where the entire midwest is due for a severe earthquake (the fault cuts loose every two hundred years or so -- by some accounts it is past due already) I'm sure that, when I'm lying crushed beneath tons of brick and masonry there will be pundits commenting on how stupid those midwesterners were, to be living in tall buildings so near a major fault ... perhaps while sitting next to a cozy fire in their fireplace, surrounded by the tinder-dry forest of the Rockies ...
  • I would suggest all posters like this apply for funding/advertisements from VA, Sun or Silicon first. Otherwise we have no chooice but to say: "Sigh, ./ again..."
  • It is actually a pretty cool county. Even the sherif's office is running apache ;-) No 98/NT's detected anywhere in the links.

  • I thought they said the place was evacuated - they must be looters on there now.

  • ...AGREES that people deserve it for living here. If idiot people would stop building right up to the fucking water, the damages from all these hurricanes would be minimal.


    Yes, I do feel sorry for the people that chose to live a reasonable distance from shore but still lost life and property due to the severity of the storms. However, because the callous and cynical person I am, I feel *NO* sympathy for the fools that live in the waterfront condos and don't try evacuating until a minute before the gale-force winds hit.


    All of shorefront South Florida deserves one big Darwin Award.


    And, no, moderators, this is not flamebait. This is a rant against the $18-30 billion dollar damages that could have been significantlly reduced if people realized that they didn't need to rape every single square inch of Florida.
  • i wonder if one could use any of these images
    as proof for your insurance ...
    somebody save them ..
  • I am able to get updated shots, 12:00:04. Looks like they have a little sun for now....
  • Where did you guys get all that hardware? Wish I had boxen like that. Wish I had a pentium at home at least.
  • Anyone notice that the water level seems to have gone up already? (look at the dock) 2:49 EST.

  • most people wouldn't put up a dock that would be under that much =]

  • Yeah, I'm sure Meteorologists will get some good information from a slow, grainy webcam.. DUH
  • I live in St. Louis now, but I come from the Mississippi coast myself. My parents have lived in the same house there for over thirty years. Camille was just before I was born, but you can still see the water marks in the garage. They've been lucky enough to have had little damage in storms since. I seem to remember riding out some storm (Frederick?) when I was very young. I definitely remember waiting out Elena about thirty miles to its leeward. The house was about ten miles leeward of George, but my parents new plenty of people who had losses in that one. My sympathy, dude.
  • I have no problem with the technology. I do have a problem with the context in which it is used/viewed. I have the same low opionion of its use as I do for all standard media frenzy that always takes place during a disaster. I'd like to think that the average slashdotter is better than that. I guess I was wrong.
  • I admit that I see your point though...

    Thanks. And I'm beginning to appreciate the forum a little better. I've seen a number of comments on this thread, not all of them agreeing with my point of view, but what unites them all the is civility. I may have over-reacted to the catagory the original article was posted under, but not by much. I can take a view counter to mine a lot better when it's intelligently broached, and so far everybody here has posted with great etiquette.
  • Your explaination doesn't cut it, especially with this crowd. I remember in particular the Al Steven's obit, and the comments that came out of that. Until such time as slashdotters prove otherwise, I consider any interest in any natural disaster suspect. Prove me wrong by showing the concrete positive good that can come out of this groups viewing.
  • Why even post this? I don't usualy critisize what gets posted here, its good to see stuff I wouldn't ordinaarily see, but really whats the point of this one? Theres no chance whatsoever that some little web cam in someone's house is going to stand up to the /. effect! So basicly this post has no information and no web cams pics to view so they might as well not have posted it!

    Its not like the Slashdot effect isn't in the dictionary.
  • ... the guy who set it up in the first place.

    Lest we forget, the webcam's owner lives in Florida, set up the system, evacuated, and then submitted the URL to Slashdot. We may presume that he wanted people to watch the storm's progress through his site, whether out of amusement, morbid curiosity, or boredom.

    It seems sort of weird to flame Slashdot for callowness but not the person who performed the hack in the first place.
  • I'm sure that nobody on /. are the type of people to enjoy the distruction of life or property in Florida, and that was obviously not the intent of this webcam.

    Simple facts:

    - WE did not put this cam up, residents of florida did. They put it up in THIER house. /. had no control over the installation of this webcam, they simply let everyone else know about it. The only way that we could know about it is if the people who installed it in THIER house told others about it.

    - I respect what you are going to go thru. I would not wish it upon anybody. But the fact is that it's going to happen. And speaking for most of us (if I may be so bold) we have never experienced a hurricane, and hopfully, never will. But, I have to admit, I'm curious to watch this hit. I would be just has happy if it didn't hit, and no damage was done. But, we can't change the fate of nature, and if we can watch it and learn to respect something we will never experience, what's the harm. We are not going to make it worse. Hell, maybe this will help people respect what is happening down there and help with relief efforts.

    - I'm also sure you have never watched a picture or a movie of twisters, earthquakes, fires, or other nature disasters. We, as a people, are more knowledgable of the world events around us, and have more compassion about those who go thru such this, then ever before in the history of the world. And a big part of this is becuase we have the ability to watch this happen now, make it real for us.

    In other words, we don't wish this upon you, we hope the best for everyone who will be affect by this, and we hope to learn by being able to watch. But, I'm sure that if there was a person staying with this webcam, we would certainly feel totally different about his, and would not be watching this.

    Good luck to all of you in Florida, we will be watching.
  • They are saying it is supposed to hit here so we set it up in the window. The police has kicked us all out but the cam will be up until the power goes out.
  • Webcam [slashdot.org]
  • There is what appears to be a Webcam shot of one of the computers in the house at ralph.cx [ralph.cx]


    Let's not /. it too quickly, eh?
  • Actually, you should try finding some pictures of the island of Kauai after hurricane Iniki hit. Flying over, it was incredible-barely a structure left standing in some places. I keep wondering if Steven "I like to film on Kauai" Spielberg will ever release the film he and his crew shot of the hurricane landing. Not funny at all for the people who are still recovering from the economic destruction it brought.

  • I think it is kind of funny for millions of people to live on a sand bar that gets hit over and over again by hurricanes

    Yeah, but when you can walk out of your house in the morning and be standing on a sandy beach with the sun shining and warm water 9 months out of the year (or all-year-round, if you're a true die-hard) ... well, it's worth the risks. Dealing with all the blue-hairs is a bit of a distraction, but you quickly learn not to stay behind cars that are larger than most boats.

    And for people that will ignore an evacuation notice [...] Natural Selection

    Actually, I think that most ppl who have lived here through a previous hurricane would agree with you. It's the non-natives who freak out the most. The beach-side hotels (on the barrier islands, at least) kicked everyone out Monday night, so even tourists have a fighting chance.

    The radio this morning made a good point: the Sheriff's office is telling ppl to get out now because they won't be coming in to help them out later when it gets worse. If that's not a excellent case for your point then I don't know what is.

    Man I hope KSC doesn't get damaged...all four Space Shuttles are there.

    They actually have a few webcams up: http://www.ksc.nasa.gov/ shuttle/countdown/video/video.html [nasa.gov].

    Why is the Space Center in Florida again?

    Because even rocket scientists need a little sun.

  • I note that the webcams at Universal Studios are toast ("temporarily unavailable due to preventative maintenance"). Oh well. I guess that means no footage of tourists fleeing for their lives from the big, bad storm.

    (And to anyone who thinks I am being callous, bugger off. I live in Orlando with family in Melbourne, and am not worried because we are *prepared*. You live in Florida, you're gonna get stomped by a few hurricanes. Deal with it.)

  • Humor has may dynamics to it. But if you really think about it, humor almost always has an element of pain to it.
    Do you remember Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land?" Mike, the main character who was raised on Mars by the natives and doesn't have an understanding of human culture, doesn't understand humor until he goes to the zoo. While watching the monkeys, he sees one basically beat up on another, smaller monkey. The victim then proceeds to beat up on a different monkey, that one being even smaller than it is. Mike begins to laugh uncontrollably. He deduced that "people laugh because it hurts so much... because it's the only thing that'll make it stop hurting." He conjectured that when apes learn to laugh, they might be people too.
    That is conventional humor. It is based on pain, and is one of the ways we, as humans, deal with pain.
    This is not to say there is any evidence of outright humor by posting the link to the webcam. I find it more apealing to watch the storm come in using a remotely operated device, than to watch the archetypical reporter in a yellow rain slicker holding on to a tree as she reports from ground zero.
  • I don't know what webcam *you're* looking at, but the one I see is pointed out at somebody's back yard and a body of water. If we're going to see anybody's house being blown away, it'll be the house of the people that set up this webcam in the first place.

    I applaud them for allowing us to witness this spectacle of nature from the point of view of their home. I don't particularly think it's funny, but like most people, I consider it thrilling to be able to witness such a thing, even if it's not first-hand.
  • Could simply be normal tidal forces..
  • It actually didn't seem that submurged.. mainly wet. But yah, you're right of course.
  • It would have been much cooler if they'd managed to set up a live RealVideo stream. I'm sure they could have found some rebroadcast providers (like that distributed RealNetworks "backbone" thing) to donate the bandwidth...
  • Not necessarily. I'm from Tallahassee, which has previously been described on /. as being the armpit of Florida. Which is actually pretty close to the truth if you're trying to figure out what part of the state it's in.

    Anyway, we rarely ever get 'canes, and the last one that was major was back in '85, IIRC. Basically, 'canes would have to either cross the penninsula where it connects to the mainland, which is tricky; circle the entire way around the Gulf clockwise; or make a sharp right after entering the Gulf.

    So you can live in Florida and be pretty safe from hurricanes. My younger siblings have, I'm sure, no idea what it's like to get hit by a hurricane. Thunderstorms, sure, but not a 'cane.
  • The power company always has trouble with trees. Remember how a few years ago when the load was very high there was a blackout across much of the city? IIRC it was because the lines sagged (due to the waste heat generated by the passage of so many electrons) and hit a tree that was _way_ too close to the lines.

    But other than Kate, which didn't really do much in my neighborhood, I can't remember a single serious storm in Tally for as long as I lived there. (I now live in Seattle where I'm told they're expecting a magnitude 8 or 9 quake any time now. Crap)
  • Aye, the cowards came from behind.
    The unsuspecting cam never had a chance.
  • Everyone who lives there know that there will be hurricanes.
    Hurricanes are not a new invention so if you choose to live there you have to expect them.
    What do you think the best way to face something you have no way to affect in any way ?
    The ones who put up this cam decided that turning it into a fun event was the best thing. Is that so wrong ?
  • I really don't think that the post was intended to poke fun at or in any way detract from the serverity of the threat that Florida and the South-Eastern Seaboard is facing. It has been woefully misfilled under humor, though there is a sense of 'geek-to-the-end' about abandoning your home but leaving a WebCam to record the onslaught of the storm.

    I, for one, am dreading the reports from the Bahamas, once they are available. I certainly hope that this does not turn out to be another Andrew for Florida. I'm also a bit concerned about the leftovers (or whatever there be) that makes it's way here to New England.

    We have all seen severe weather at one point or another. It's been a number of years since I've seen a hurricane. I think Gloria was a class 3, and I'm quite a ways off shore, so I can only imagine what you folks are facing now. But if it helps at all, I'm sure I speak for most /. readership when I say that we are not entertained, but rather concerned and enawed by Floyd. Our thoughts are with you, and we are not laughing.
  • No, not the storm itself. That's not funny.
    Putting a web cam up to virtualy "brave the storm", THAT's funny.
  • The pictures are broken because they are being sensored by Big Brother. They don't want you to know there really is no hurricane. It's all a plot by the government to boost lagging sales of plywood.
  • This article is about geek culture and the fact that in the shadow of a disaster a geeks still love technology, computers and the internet. This is not about a morbid death fetish. Get of your soap box and quit crying. No one is twisting these peoples arms to live where they live. I dont feel bad at all for the dummy who gets crushed because he is stitting in his beach cottage filming the storm surge. Slashdot is looking at this from a geeks perspective if you dont understand that then go read www.cnn.com like the rest of the masses.
  • As a resident of Florida (Orlando), I don't know if I appreciate the morbid interest a web cam provides to the slash dot crew. I hope, that while you watching it, that you realise real people and real lives are about to get pounded. I've got friends and acquantances who stand a real good chance of loosing their homes to the storm surge projected on Florida's coasts. On the way in to work I've been watching the long lines of traffic from Melbourne and Daytona. They're shutting down Research Park near UCF (we leave at noon), and Orlando itself will essentially shut down around 4 pm.

    Floyd is a big, crazy storm, class 4 trying to be a class 5. It might pass by and the only thing we get is a lot of wind and rain. But then again, it might not. Whatever happens, keep in mind that our experiences in Florida over the next 48 hours are not meant to be a form of cheap entertainment for slash dotters.
  • I live in West Palm Beach, a few miles from the ocean. I'm not evacuating - I live in a nice Concrete Block Construction house, like all intelligent Floridians. Right now, I've got nice slabs of plywood over the east windows, and I've got the picture window ready to be covered. About half the people in the neighborhood have headed north.

    Yesterday, I stocked up - at the grocery store, there was no bread, no soup, no canned meats (tuna, spam, etc.) the first aid section was ransacked, there were not enough shopping carts, and people were parking in the middle of the road to get to the store while workers put up solid steel storm shutters on the outside of the building. A fistfight broke out twice while we were there - the second because someone tried to go through the express line with a full cart. At least they had just gotten a new shipment of water.

    As we drove back, we went past a Scotty's (a local hardware store). One guy rammed his truck into another truck several times, and then peeled off. I heard later that there was a riot there. The store had run out of all fasteners (screws, nails, etc), and people were buying plywood and duct tape.

    Bandwidth has been spotty. I haven't done many tests, but browsing the web on my ADSL has become a "maybe" affair. I'm not pinging through to some sites occasionally. I'm using BellSouth. My server (www.onepaper.com) is also down here (actually located in Boca Raton, another city), and located in the old IBM campus, which is built to withstand a nuclear attack, and should weather the hurricane without trying. Just in case, we made copies of backups, and CD-ROM sets of critical data, and sent them around.

    Phone service was ringing "circuits busy" (fast busy signal) quite a bit yesterday - I was using my cell phone more that my regular phone. I had a dozen people over for Monday night Rocky Horror rehearsal at my place (which I think would take place even post-apocolypse). One person is living in a mobile home, and is more afraid of the shelters than the hurricane. She has nowhere to go. Another person who just moved back from college, and is currently living with her parents, lives in a wood construction home. She and her sister are going to stay with us tonight.

    A large part of a tree is down outside. I just got a call that they are closing down the roads in a short while.

    If anybody is from this area, I am near the corner of Okeechobee (a major road that runs east/west), and Military Trail (about two miles west of I-95, and about three from the coast). I'll stay on-line as long as possible - lightning dosen't often go along with hurricanes.

    --
    Evan

  • But Floyd winds are 117% of NASA shuttle hangar strength [sjmercury.com]. Keep watching the skies...
  • Was I being too subtle when I specifically mentioned trees across the road which he'd need to use to evacuate?

    For archival readers, this was posted at 11:47 CDT, in case the above time is still several hours off.

  • Actually, it says 500 feet _from_ the atlantic ocean, maybe in a marina, methinks. Should be able to detect trees falling without too much extra-sensory perception. =)
  • You would be surprised.

    A friend of mine has his web cam aimed out of his window towards one of the local bridges. Shortly after he put it up he started getting once an hour on the hour hits from the local weather office. His curiosity finally lead to calling them to find out what was going on. They were using his web cam to suppliment their weather data.

    Now he tilts the camera up a bit to catch more of the sky for them. I don't know how much data a web cam can provide on a fast moving storm but I wouldn't completely rule it out.

  • I also live in Tallahassee and was in Hurricane Kate in November, 85. Kate was a minimal hurricane when it hit our beautifully forested city of Tallahassee. heheh. The 70-ish MPH winds of Kate knocked down so many trees that we, living well inside the city limits, had no electricity for days. Some people in the outlying neighborhoods and further had no power for 2 or 3 weeks!

    But the thing I remember most vividly was the howling wind that went on for hours. A large tree, about 20 inches in diameter, fell behind our apartment -- and we didn't even hear it fall. We discovered it the next day lying about 10 feet from the house.

    A minimal hurricane, even hitting where there is no possibility of flooding, is a pretty scary thing. Stuff flying through the air, trees and limbs falling, and the ever present possibility of a "tornado" or superswirl focuses your attention every time the howl reaches a higher pitch.

    I'm alternately fascinated and terrified by hurricanes. We've had many much larger ones threaten our area since '85 but we haven't been hit again. But we choose to live down here and we take our chances. My friends and relatives living right on the Gulf made their own choices too.

    As for those who think there is something wrong with a webcam sitting in the path of the hurricane, remember: you don't have to look. But, please, don't judge those of us who appreciate the view. ;)
  • Why is the Space Center in Florida again?

    Because the people at NASA are big fans of Jules Verne's "From the Earth to the Moon".

    The real reason:

    When you launch a rocket into a normal (non retrograde) equitorial orbit, you add the velocity of the launching site, at the equator this translates to v = (2*pi*r)/(24*60*60) m/s, or about 450 m/s velocity that you get for free.

    The two parts of the continental US that are closest to the Equator are Florida and Texas, and it was a coin toss as to which got the launch facilities (though the lack of great populations to the east of Florida certainly helped). Texas got the Space Center as a consolation prize.

    Jules Verne's also described having to choose between Texas and Florida.

    A lot of Vandenburg launches are destined for polar orbits, which is why Vanderburg isn't at much of a geographic disadvantage (and the Air Force security, too).

    This is also why the French/ESA launches from Guiana, just about right on the equator.

    George
  • Whatever happens, keep in mind that our experiences in Florida over the next 48 hours are not meant to be a form of cheap entertainment for slashdotters.

    Apparently, the people who set up the webcam (also Florida residents) disagree with you. I do too.

    Come on, you whiners! The humor icon *is* appropriate. I don't think this is funny because of the impending death and destruction. I think this is funny because these geeks, while packing up their stuff and evacuating their house, stopped to aim the web cam out the window and make sure the computers were well protected.

    And when I stop to think about it, I have to admit that I would do the same. Wouldn't you?

  • If you want to put your big monitors to use, NOAA posts a handfull of
    big high resolution satellite images here [noaa.gov].
  • I've never had to evacuate from a hurricane. However, I have had to deal with one or two (or ten or twelve) typhoons during the seven years I lived in Taiwan. Better still, on a small island in the middle of the Pacific, you don't get to evacuate inland.

    We lived through the typhoon season every fall. Our standard plan was to stock up on bottled water ,fresh vegetables (they would be in short supply for a few weeks after a typhoon, and wincingly expensive), and beer. The worst consequence we ever had to deal with were friends who came up from the center of the island after a few days because their water had stopped (they usually smelled pretty ripe by then!).

    How do you survive? a few pointers now the Florida coast has to reconstruct...

    1) Wood-frame houses are great -- in California. Look into concrete and brick as building materials.

    2) Some parts of the world have iron or stainless steel hurricane shutters for the windows. They're attractive and useful at the same time!

    3) Walk the extra 200 feet to the beach. Pumping salt water out of your beachfront house has just got to bite.

    Good luck!
  • Prove me wrong by showing the concrete positive good that can come out of this groups viewing.

    I suppose this ain't much of proof, but I live in a place where disastrous weather is close to non-existant (the worst I've ever seen was some heavy snow that kept me locked up in my home for 36 hours - the electricity never even went out). Now, of course I know the effects storms such as these can have... I've read all about it... but actually seeing it would give me quite another perspective.

    I'll try to give an example: You get a pretty good feel of your local geography while driving around in a car - but it's not until you get up in an airplane and actually see the lanscape from above you actually understand how all the locations are connected to eachother.
    I claim (in error, mayhaps, but I don't think so) that this is pretty much the same thing. Actually seeing what goes on there would give me a whole new perspective of what it's really about. I would most probably feel more for the people that are struck by this disaster if I saw it 'live' (as live as it gets through a webcam) than if I watched the teli 24 hours later showing me some houses lying upside down.

    I admit that I see your point though, and I don't really disagree there. Most people will most probably see this as mere entertainment, but I still don't think that knowledge, in any form, through any media, can be fundamentally wrong.

  • My mother is in the path of this storm (north florida -- jax beach). Believe me when I say that many of the people here are not interested in having a good time at florida's expense. I for one am thankful to have another venue to see what is going on there. My mother is a live aboard (great boat named touchstone). If the storm hits that section of the coast (which it probably will), then that wonderful boat will be trashed.

    Besides, how is this any different than watching the news?
  • All the shuttles are at the Cape along with parts of the International Space Station and parts to repair and improve the Hubble Space telescope.

    If all that gets trashed by the hurricane we (humanity and science) might lose years of work in space program. A significant amount of Congress is hostile to spending money on NASA and the Space Station. We could lose the ISS all in one shot without Space Shuttles (which will take years to rebuild).

    Meanwhile, I'll be hiding behind my plywood here in Miami.

    Anjin-san

  • Funny...Well Kinda (Score:3)

    by Wyatt Earp ( 1029 ) on Tuesday September 14, 1999 @01:06AM (#1683650)
    I'm sorry...but I think it is kind of funny for millions of people to live on a sand bar that gets hit over and over again by hurricanes and the Federal Governemnt keeps giving them money to rebuild there.

    No it's not funny when people die from a hurricane...but it is funny that people will move back and wait for another one. And for people that will ignore an evacuation notice and ride a 150 MpH hurricane out on a boat...two words for you. Natural Selection.

    Man I hope KSC doesn't get damaged...all four Space Shuttles are there.

    Why is the Space Center in Florida again?

  • It's gone (At least, for me right now) (Score:3)

    by Serk ( 17156 ) on Tuesday September 14, 1999 @12:36AM (#1683651) Homepage
    What the hurricane couldn't bring down, the Slashdot effect has/will. Poor little web cam, so bravely facing the onslaught on the storm, only to be blindsided by hordes of geeks clicking it to death.....

  • Everyone please quit whining. (Score:3)

    by lythander ( 21981 ) on Tuesday September 14, 1999 @01:21AM (#1683652)
    Hurricanes are terrible. Scary. Very Dangerous.

    People who don't evacuate (i.e. "ride it out") are VERY STUPID. The geeks left and set the cam up to stay behind. They were smart.

    BTW Meteorologist like to see things like this because they might produce some interesting data to let them better understand and predict these things.

    Everyone who is in the path of this storm has my sympathy, until you refuse to evacuate. Please be safe down there. Just remember that my tax dollars will help you rebuild that beach-side condo afterwards anyway, dumbass.

  • It's not supposed to be... (Score:3)

    by pawlie ( 23653 ) on Tuesday September 14, 1999 @12:59AM (#1683653)
    OK, so the humour icon might be a little tasteless. However, to me, this really shows the power of the internet (if not the power of the host computer and its internet connection!), and the way that current affairs and news coverage is changing (although admittedly this probably wouldn't make a terribly interesting TV program).

  • If Iain M. Banks Named Hurricane Floyd... (Score:3)

    by meersan ( 26609 ) on Tuesday September 14, 1999 @01:10AM (#1683654) Homepage
    Enough of all these boring, lame-ass hurricane names. Brett, Mitch, blah blah blah. We need a little more originality....

    Top 20 Things Iain M. Banks [phlebas.com] Would Name Hurricane Floyd

    20. Hurricane Mild Inconvenience
    19. Hurricane Looter-Friendly
    18. Hurricane Net Congestion
    17. Hurricane Wildly Overrated
    16. Hurricane So Much For Subtlety
    15. Hurricane This, Too, Shall Pass
    14. Hurricane Flying Shrapnel
    13. Hurricane We're Not In Kansas Anymore
    12. Hurricane Rotating Cow
    11. Hurricane Huddling In The Basement
    10. Hurricane Hissy Fit
    9. Hurricane That's It, We're Moving To Wisconsin
    8. Hurricane Doing Unto Others
    7. Hurricane The Movie
    6. Hurricane Hurried Evacuation
    5. Hurricane I Didn't Know My Car Could Swim
    4. Hurricane Slashdot Effect
    3. Hurricane What I Did On My Summer Vacation
    2. Hurricane We're All Going To Die
    1. Hurricane Warrior Princess

  • Hey, wouldn't it be great if... (Score:3)

    by Enoch Root ( 57473 ) on Tuesday September 14, 1999 @02:04AM (#1683655)
    ...this Linux box sustained the onslaught of a hurricane? It'd put Windows 2000 to shame by crashing because of a leetle thunderstorm. :)

    "There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."

  • Relax, people... (Score:3)

    by Enoch Root ( 57473 ) on Tuesday September 14, 1999 @01:04AM (#1683656)
    Look, the news didn't say, 'Watch human massacres in Oriental Timor being slaughtered live on Webcam!' Yes, it's a dire time for Florida residents, but it's neither a morbid interest nor out of amusement that people will take a peek at this webcam.

    You can be sure there will be dozens of live reports on television; so why not a webcam? If anything, it makes me care for what happens more than some phoney journalist dramatising the whole thing on national television. I hope I won't see anything on this webcam and that the house stands.

    This is only technology at the service of communities, people. If anything, it makes us seem to live closer to one another. The Slashdot category chosen may be weird, but I think it's comic in a tragic sense. The poor webcam faces the uncoming storm long after the people have evacuated. Beyond that, there is nothing funny about it.

    So, cool, people. The day they put a webcam in a concentration camp I'll scream. For now, I'll watch and hope things are alright.

    "There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."

  • Funny? Don't think so. (Score:4)

    by kris ( 824 ) <kris-slashdot@koehntopp.de> on Tuesday September 14, 1999 @12:40AM (#1683657) Homepage
    I do not think that this is the correct category for such stuff. The following message came around yesterday evening on the PHP-Slashdot Developers mailing list:


    From: ...
    Date: 13.09.1999 01:46
    Subject: [PHPSLASH] The big blow
    To: "PHPSlash"

    Well, we are under mandatory evacuation orders here in Hollywood, Fl. where I live. There is a major storm about to stomp us. They are not sure if it is going to come ashore here, or somewhere north of us, but as it's less then 400 miles away now and is over 400 miles wide, that puts the leading edge less than 200 miles away. Tropical storm force winds (35+ MPH) are due in a matter of hours, gale force (about 60+ mph) by 10 AM. The storm is expected to last all day tomorrow and most of Wednesday. What fun. Currently it is a
    category five storm that is described as capable of doing catastrophic damage. Love that word, catastrophic. Everything three and above is
    considered deadly.

    As most of you possibly know, I live on a sailboat about 500 feet from the Atlantic Ocean. If my home (boat) is destroyed, or S. Fl. looses power/telephone/water, then god only knows when I will be back online, might even take weeks/months. If everything survives all right, I'll be back online Wednesday night or Thursday morning.

    The good news is that the storm center is thinking the hurricane force winds (155+ mph in this case) will miss us. By about 10 miles. Nothing like
    cutting it close.

    Currently, I am ignoring the evacuation orders, as nothing much will actually happen for another 10 hours or so, but after that...

    So, wish me luck and if you are so inclined, say a prayer....

    Best always,
    ...


    Still thinking this is funny?

  • Eeek my bedroom is slashdotted!! :) (Score:4)

    by Cybersonic ( 7113 ) <ralph@ralph.cx> on Tuesday September 14, 1999 @04:26AM (#1683658) Homepage
    I have pics of the house at http://ralph.cx/page.phtml [ralph.cx] before the storm....

    As I read some of the responses here i would like to point out, we took all of the important stuff out of the house (like our main server with 40+ gigs of mp3s) and have dat backups of everything else, so we are just trying to make light of the situation. Hurricanes are a fact of life in Florida and we understand the risk living on the water... I think it was really cool of Hemos to put it up, thanx :) Now i wish i had more than a 256 Frac-T.....

    Almost everything in our house runs linux... (except for the HP-Apollos running HP-UX, the NeXt box, and my Amigas....)

  • Weather Cams (Score:4)

    by puppet ( 27092 ) on Tuesday September 14, 1999 @12:56AM (#1683659) Homepage
    Here is a live cam from Miami Beach [video-monitoring.com], several North Florida [beachview.com] cams and a link to a whole page of weather cams [umich.edu] for the US.

    Don't kill them all at once! Spread it around.

  • Backup site (Score:4)

    by SEWilco ( 27983 ) on Tuesday September 14, 1999 @12:49AM (#1683660) Journal
    In case something somehow happens to the main site, a backup site [treco.net] is set up. In case the site is too busy, the view is looking out a window at what looks like a river. I was hoping for a view which included the computer so we could watch the water rising...

  • Re:The depths of poor aim (Score:4)

    by RomulusNR ( 29439 ) on Tuesday September 14, 1999 @01:09AM (#1683661) Homepage
    Perhaps this mail should be sent to CNN, Reuters, AP, UPI, and the major networks instead -- groups which are encouraging hapless freelance paparazzi to deliberately risk their lives to film the storm themselves.

    All the testy objections to publicity of one little linux-cam taking footage of the storm, which apparently all of you have forgotten has been standard media fare in every disaster for the past 20 years at least, are ignoring one significant point here.

    How much does a cheap Linux box cost? 500, 600 dollars, if that? And a little color webcam comes to 100 - 150 dollars? And no one has to be there. So not only do you come up with a remotely viewable camera that costs MUCH less then your average news camera, it doesnt require anyone to risk their life filming a dangerous situation.

    To me, that's much more preferable than people driving themselves off of torn-up causeways and dunking into turbulent water just to film swaying trees and floods on a Florida barrier island. It's not worth anyone's life. THAT is something to be thankful for.

    Romulus

  • You know, whenever a natural disaster, or a massacre, or whatever occurs, a few of us refuse to see it as a serious life-changing event. Then, people on message boards like this, or Usenet, or editorials in your local rag, get on us because "this isn't funny! Remember all the people who were hurt/died/homeless!" Know what? If I wanna find humor in this, I will. Nobody freaks when my county gets a tornado warning. Or a tornado. It affects you, not me. It'd be really shitty of me if I made these jokes around someone who had lost home and family, but you know what? I don't really give a damn. What affects you doesn't affect me, and be damned if you're gonna try to make me feel bad because you got property in a hurricane zone. I hope your home and family survive OK. But don't expect me or /. to censor what we say because of where you live.

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