Hurricane Irma and Amtrak

53 (8) and 52 (9), originally scheduled to be the last trains to/from FL, have been cancelled.

Speaker Ryan is not a clown, you are confusing him with Poster Ryan. Speaker Ryan is a jerk, Poster Ryan is a clown. I think.

Oy vey! According to the 9/8/17 (Friday) 8am update from NHC Orlando is smack dab in the middle of the parojected path of a Cat 2 hurricane! Due to pass through the night between Sunday and Monday.

This is actually good news for us at the east coast. With the 30 mile diameter eye, that puts us well beyond the eye wall.

But of course projections will keep changing until it actually comes by. The trend at present is for the path to shift westwards, since the Bermuda High has proved to be stronger than anyone anticipated, and the Low over continental US seems to be also doing a bang up job pulling it towards itself.

Jis, Penny and other Au members in Florida, are you staying or leaving? Best wishes to all. Stay safe.

Everydaymatters said:

Jis, Penny and other Au members in Florida, are you staying or leaving? Best wishes to all. Stay safe.

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I'm in Clearwater and I'm staying. As of now they have only evacuated Zone A and announced they will not evacuate above Zone C, while I am in Zone E. Obviously there is still wind and to a certain extent water to worry about, but I will likely be on the west (weaker) side of the storm.
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I am in no Zone and had never planned to leave for this one or for Matthew, for which we were in the bull's eye. All buttoned up in a 2004 code+ concrete house with strong storm shutters installed all around.

K, hope you got a good generator to get through the 2-3 weeks without power! *waves*

Everydaymatters said:

Jis, Penny and other Au members in Florida, are you staying or leaving? Best wishes to all. Stay safe.

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Thanks Betty. I am staying in Orlando and I hope my windows hold out. I am in a high rise condo with no shutters, but a solid concrete building. To say the least, I am a bit anxious about Orlando being in the "bullseye." I plan to move as much as I can away from my windows. I also plan to sit it the hallway in front of my apartment, likely with the other residents of my floor, during the worst of the storm.

I add my best wishes to you all as well.

I add my best wishes to all those in the hurricane's projected path. Stay safe!!!

brianpmcdonnell17 said:

Metra Electric Rider said:

Is Tampa evacuating or not? I have a friend in St. Pete who said they would know today, but haven't heard anything yet. My cousin in central Florida is hunkered down in their poured concrete house (I hope yours is too JIS).

I gather my friends in San Juan are ok (luckily almost everything in PR is built from poured concrete and it's relatively hilly in the San Juan area too).

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Pinellas county (including St. Petersburg) is evacuating Zone A, which is the first of 5 flood zones and includes very low elevation areas and all mobile homes. No evacuation would likely be necessary if it does stay on it's current course, but the precaution is likely a good thing as if the storm turns and makes a direct hit more than one of the zones would likely need to be evacuated.
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He's downtown, relatively near the water (1/2 to 1/4 mile I think). He was going to "hunker down" or ride it out, but I'm hearing second hand, starting to get a bit antsy about him. I hope he's going to stay with somebody in your zone - I remember having the higher area pointed out as generally not being evacuated.

Good luck to you, Penny and Jis (and his lizards) as well as any other Florida members!

Ryan said:

To be more correct, the pricing algorithms jacked the prices up based solely on massive demand and proximity to the travel dates.

Unless you have something else that the airlines deliberately went in and modified the pricing upward specifically because of the hurricane, which is what Dennis accused them of.

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Don't you find it odd that these massive air fare increases just happened coincidentally at the very time that the hurricane was moving toward Florida? . Read the experiences of the actual Twitter account users where this happened to them. Then just as fast as the airlines were exposed for this action, the fares magically went down. I guess just another coincidence.

Everydaymatters said:

Jis, Penny and other Au members in Florida, are you staying or leaving? Best wishes to all. Stay safe.

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Shanghai lives near Winter Haven and plans to ride out the storm there. He, his wife and Archie have plenty of supplies, including a generator.

dlagrua said:

Ryan said:

To be more correct, the pricing algorithms jacked the prices up based solely on massive demand and proximity to the travel dates.

Unless you have something else that the airlines deliberately went in and modified the pricing upward specifically because of the hurricane, which is what Dennis accused them of.

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Don't you find it odd that these massive air fare increases just happened coincidentally at the very time that the hurricane was moving toward Florida? . Read the experiences of the actual Twitter account users where this happened to them. Then just as fast as the airlines were exposed for this action, the fares magically went down. I guess just another coincidence.

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If the airlines manually manipulated fares right as a major storm was approaching they'd be risking a conviction for profiteering. That's why in the post-Enron era it's almost certainly a programmatic event rather than the direct actions of a human yield manager. The motivation and result are similar but potential for liability is greatly reduced thanks to the ability to blame "unforeseen" consequences.

dlagrua said:

Ryan said:

To be more correct, the pricing algorithms jacked the prices up based solely on massive demand and proximity to the travel dates.

Unless you have something else that the airlines deliberately went in and modified the pricing upward specifically because of the hurricane, which is what Dennis accused them of.

Click to expand...

Don't you find it odd that these massive air fare increases just happened coincidentally at the very time that the hurricane was moving toward Florida? . Read the experiences of the actual Twitter account users where this happened to them. Then just as fast as the airlines were exposed for this action, the fares magically went down. I guess just another coincidence.

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Didn't you read Ryan's post "massive demand". Gee, I wonder why there was a massive demand so close to when the last flights will leaving the Miami area.

Thanx to all for the best wishes & prayers. I'm in a mobile home in Palm Harbor & will be staying with my brother in north Tampa for the adventure. Had a Plan B, Amtrak - STP to WAS, but was cancelled (service disruption)!

Good Luck & Have Fun to all my fellow Floridians & AUers!!!

Considering this storm is big enough to thump all of Florida, I don't know one can have any choice but cancel. Wait and see, I guess.

Rail Freak said:

Thanx to all for the best wishes & prayers. I'm in a mobile home in Palm Harbor & will be staying with my brother in north Tampa for the adventure. Had a Plan B, Amtrak - STP to WAS, but was cancelled (service disruption)!

Good Luck & Have Fun to all my fellow Floridians & AUers!!!

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Be safe Michael. Last I heard, the west coast of Florida may feel the effects of Irma more than we will in Central Florida. No doubt, the path will change many times before Sunday. I am ready to eat and drink my "hurricane snacks."

Irma will be just a cat 1 here at Georgia. Do not be surprised if there is as much wind damage in Georgia as Florida, The building codes where there are any are severely lacking. Example no Florida type window strength codes . Only the Atlanta area has any thing that even resembles wind strength.

pennyk said:

Be safe Michael. Last I heard, the west coast of Florida may feel the effects of Irma more than we will in Central Florida. No doubt, the path will change many times before Sunday. I am ready to eat and drink my "hurricane snacks."

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Thanx Penny, hope to meet ya on the rails, some day!!!

I'm riding out the storm here in Orlando. All I'm worried about is flooding as there is a lake nearby (as are other people in my area), but we're confident we won't flood. Stay safe everyone in the state, we're all in this together.

Hope everyone stays safe in Florida and the southeast!

I have a trip planned to TPA in 2 1/2 weeks. I just hope I can make it!

Personally if I was y'all I'd be holding a hurricane party in Louisville.

We are in Pa visiting relatives and were scheduled to come back yesterday but our return to Deerfield Beach was rescheduled to Tuesday the 12th but that was cancelled by Amtrak yesterday.

We are now scheduled on the Silver Meteor out of Wilmington Del on Friday the 15th. Hope the family can put up with us!

Our prayers for all who are still there to endure the storm.

Seaboard92 said:

Devil said:

A Voice said:

With respect, I'm not sure why you find it remarkable that companies or individuals in the path of a major storm (Irma) would take precautions to protect their property. You're going to have to reinstall the gates anyway if you leave them in place only to have them damaged or destroyed (become projectiles) by the storm; Why have to deal with unnecessary damage afterwards - when you're anxious to get the main back open - when a few prudent preparations are so much simpler.

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This doesn't sound terribly simple to me, nor have I ever seen or even heard of anyone doing this previously, and I live near a major hurricane path. It's also unclear where these things would go that Irma can't reach. Is there some sort of special underground bunker for crossing gates? Out here crossing gates are the responsibility of the city and state, not the railroad. If they're damaged or down the railroad can use other methods for protecting an active crossing. Not saying it's impossible that CSX does this, just that it's odd and unusual relative to my own experiences.

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They go to wherever is the supply depot for the signal maintainers. Usually it's in some form of old intermodal container, a building, or in a completely fenced in yard. In SC in the Piedmont area CSX has two such locations greenwood maxwell yard and Clinton, SC that I know of for fact.

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CSX has removed some crossing gates on the Clearwater Subdivision; I just took these photos about 10 minutes ago in Downtown Clearwater. This crossing is Myrtle Avenue, the northern end of the downtown street-running segment. The next crossing in either direction is not equipped with gates anyway, but interestingly enough the following crossing in either direction is equipped with gates and they have yet to be removed. This segment of track is not in a flood zone, but the Intracoastal Waterway is less than a 1/2 mile away.
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