Hurricane Wilma turns deadly
Stress is wearing us down here in Little Martin. We never quite recovered from the two hurricanes that zeroed in on our county last year. When Katrina struck this year, it was apparent that my public safety colleagues and I were not as sharp as we should have been, but thankfully the storm was not fully developed when it visited here. Now, the nightmare of another direct hit by a killer storm is looming.
Hurricane Wilma's winds reached 175 mph and its pressure dropped to 892 millibars this morning, making it an extremely intense Category 5 hurricane as it moved across the Caribbean with a projected landfall in Florida.
This is the lowest pressure observed in 2005 and is equivalent to the minimum pressure of the 1935 Labor Day hurricane in the Florida Keys. Hurricane Wilma appeared determined to make a dramatic right turn toward South Florida, possibly arriving in our area with winds of up to 115 mph on Saturday, though the region could start feeling rain from its fringes on Friday.
Wilma, the season's record-tying 12th hurricane, intensified to a strong Category 5 storm Wednesday morning, and it was forecast to reach the Gulf of Mexico on Friday afternoon after marching northwest across the Caribbean.
The expansive system was projected to accelerate toward Florida's Gulf Coast and strike near Naples by Saturday evening, potentially as a Category 4 with 145 mph winds. From there, Wilma might barrel just south of Lake Okeechobee and emerge in the Atlantic near Stuart, possibly retaining 115 mph strength, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami-Dade County.
But the worst thing about Wilma is that it is bearing down on us near the end of the hurricane season. We just started feeling a bit more relaxed, a bit more at ease. You could almost feel the stress and tension evaporating away in the operations center.
We'll ramp up and be ready to activate ... but all of these storms are wearing us down.