My Wilma photos from Boca Raton - during and after

[Zackiedawg]

Hi...new to the forums here, and thought I'd post my album from Wilma as I haven't seen too many photos from this area on the forums yet.

I have a 3-page album on Wilma; the first page starts with some video captures from my miniDV camcorder, which I used to film the storm from early approach through exit and aftermath. All other pictures were taken with still cameras during the eye, just after the storm, or within the first few days after.

Here's the album link:

My Wilma Album!

Also, since I'm new and wasn't around the forums last year, I have another hurricane album that might be interesting:

My Frances & Karl album

The first few pages of this album have some shots from Hurricane Frances' damage last year around my town.

The last two pages are something a little different - damage photos from the cruise ship Rotterdam in September 2004 when she was caught in the North Atlantic by Hurricane Karl, slammed with 50-foot swells, lost engines and power, and bobbed for 6 hours powerless and unable to steer into the waves and wind. The ship suffered a fair amount of damage and scared the wind out of the passengers!

Take a look at both...comments or questions welcome.

[decgirl66]

Great pics, thanx for sharing and welcome to the forum!

[stacyp]

I enjoyed your pics, especially the ones of the stars. They were beautiful after the storm. We went outside every night to star gaze until the power started to come back on. It was amazing and made the hurricane mess seem not so bad. I am from up north originally and used to take that kind of stuff for granted lol. Thanks for posting!

[fci]

Nice pix and welcome to the forum.

They are showong WAY too familiar sites from the area. A whole lot of miles of SF look the same.

I was at the Dolphin game and coming down the ramp from the upper deck just saw an incredible number of blue tarps in the surrounding neighborhoods.

We also did really enjoy seeing the stars; a rarity around here!

[Jim Cantore]

Thats some nasty weather

Welcome to the fourm by the way

[Doc Seminole]

Welcome to Storm2K.

Great pictures.

Looks like you have a digital. What camera were the pictures on your other pages taken with?


Doc Seminole

[Zackiedawg]

Thanks for the compliments all, and for taking a look. Sorry, I was busy last night and didn't get a chance to recheck the forums...I can sneak on at work, since I sometimes find myself sitting on hold for 20 minutes trying to get a hold of financial and insurance companies!

And thanks for the forum welcome. It is kind of neat to find a forum about weather...I have always been a storm geek myself, with a longtime fascination of tropical systems, lightning, supercells, tornadoes, hail, snow...whatever! My first hurricane was when I was 10 or so...hurricane Bell which hit up in New Jersey. It was barely a 1, but it did wash a storm surge up the Jersey shore, and we were staying in a beachside villa at the time. We evacuated to a 4 story hotel, and watched the window bow in from the winds...the next morning we returned to find a foot of water in the villa, and even a fish trapped in the kitchen, looking for a way out. I was hooked from that moment.

Doc Seminole, I've got a few digitals in my collection, most of which were used for the pics I post in the galleries. My main cam is a Sony DSC-F717...it's got 5MP, 36-210mm optical zoom, and a great piece of F2.0 glass throughout the zoom range...plus manual controllability. I've had it for years, but can't bring myself to replace it. I also have a Sony H1, which is a 12x optical mega-zoom cam with image stabilization at 5MP, and a tiny L1 ultra-compact for those spur of the moment shots (not much bigger than a zippo). I still have my old Canon S100 Elph (2MP), but don't use it much anymore. And my miniDV cam is a 5 year old Sony TRV25, which has seen far too much weather - having been soaked in the rains of two hurricanes, and with a dead LCD (have to use the viewfinder).

[EDR1222]

Those are some really good pictures.

Thanks for posting. That was the weirdest thing, going from a landfalling hurricane to clear crisp cool weather with no clouds in sight all seemingly within half a day.

[Zackiedawg]

It really was...in fact, the cool weather began when the eye was passing over us. During the first half of the hurricane and when the front eye wall passed over, the weather was moist and tropical, typical of what one would expect of a hurricane. But when the eye arrived, the 45 minutes or so that we were inside revealed temps in the 70s at best, and a cooler breeze blowing. The back eye wall, which was definately stronger for us than the front part, was actually blowing cool...I was outside during some of it, filming from my backyard behind the shelter of my house and it was what I would expect in January or February for Florida.

The back eye seemed to hit us hard for 40 minutes or so, then maybe 35-45 minutes of reducing winds with no rain...and by around 2:30pm it was cool and the sky was clear.

Despite the additional damage Wilma caused compared to Frances, it was MUCH nicer afterwards! Frances came Saturday night, was still hitting us with tropical storm conditions all day Sunday, and left us from Monday on with 6 more days of mid-90s temps with near-90% humidities, plus no breeze.

I actually spent Monday afternoon cleaning up debris, and much of Tuesday raking, lifting, and sawing, without breaking a sweat. After Frances, I was drenched in sweat just sitting on the couch not moving.

[Scorpion]

I agree. When I was out in the eyewall the front half seemed much warmer than the back half. It felt like a cold rain. It was strange.