UPDATE #3. Dorian has edged north of West Palm, but remains spinning mostly in place just off-shore. Courts remained closed Tuesday, and will reopen Wednesday assuming it doesn't spin back on itself.
This was Ivan in 2004:
UPDATE#2 First. The storm has slowed down, but it has not yet turned. Like waiting for a judge at an 8am calendar who is late- everyone is watching the clock.
Second. An unnamed altruist wants us to publish the Court Emergency Number: 305-349-7777. In the future, when the danger is past, the number is useful for a host of reasons. "Hello. Emergency Operations? I'm waiting on a jury on the fourth floor of REGJB, and the M&M's are stuck in the vending machine. Please send help."
UPDATE: Schools closed in Dade and Broward and West Palm for TUESDAY. Dade and Broward have announced COURTS ARE CLOSED TUESDAY. The SDFL website says they tie the closure of courts to the closure of schools. With WPB, Dade and Broward schools cerrado, federal court is also closed Tuesday.
Hello this is Rumpole. I have put aside for the moment the arrogant, royal persona that our readers find so maddening yet endearing. The "smarter than you" posts and comments , although we are in fact smarter than 99.9% of you (no one said this was going to be easy).
Hurricane Dorian is a massive, dangerous storm. Hurricanes are very unpredictable. If you Google hurricane paths, you will see storms stopping and doubling back on themselves. Hurricanes wobble as they approach land and they can veer fifty miles north or south in the blink of an eye-wall.
Because of our anxiety, there is a natural fixation on the hurricane paths and cones, and relief when the cone shifts so that we appear to be out of danger. Make no mistake that until this storm dissipates, we in South Florida are not out of danger, cone or no cone.
The email from Broward County announcing that court will open on Tuesday was complete folly. The storm has slowed, and by Tuesday, at best, 50-100 mile winds could well be hitting Ft. Lauderdale. Not exactly the type of weather lawyers and clients should be out in. We are hopeful they will rescind that order. But being Broward, they are as unpredictable as hurricanes.
Many of us can still vividly remember the feelings of being huddled in a closet and watching our roof fly away as Andrew slammed into South Dade. And recall that days before Andrew hit, it was predicted to strike North Broward.
So please, listen to us. Continue your preparation. Put up your shutters, or take your family and leave for a few days. Have water and some dry food and candles and a battery operated radio ready to go,
We want Dorian to miss us. We see the cone shift and we immediately relax. But last night (Saturday-Sunday) the cone shifted south again. In the last three days the south end of the cone has gone from covering the middle keys to being on the Dade Broward border.
We are not in the clear and we will not know for sure until the storm misses us and dissipates.
Until then, please stay safe.
We like having a lot of readers.
Your obt. svt.
H. Rumpole, Esq. Blog Proprietor.
Broward County powers that be (not a group of people we ever want to meet) have announced Court will be OPEN Tuesday. Their reasoning is "once a hurricane turns, it NEVER turns back."
Yeah, right.
Miami-Dade has stated they are still worried about tropical disturbance Andrew and haven't made a decision yet. Plus they also cited the uncertainty of the Gulf War.
Stay tuned.
UPDATE: Hurricane D (any resemblance to any sitting federal judge in the Southern District of Florida is purely unintentional) is now a Cat 1 on the way to Cat 3 (for what these terms mean in relation to your impending demise, read below) because it missed the mountains on the Island of Hispaniola. It now looks like it could strike Daytona Beach or northward. For those of you excessively fond of cheesy beach front bars serving beer, wings and sweet tea, sorry.
Also, we have included our Hurricane supply list, which every prepared citizen should have. See below.
August means Hurricane season. It also means the influx of a brand new set of assistant public defenders and assistant state attorneys, many of them from places like Oklahoma, Indiana, Illinois, where hurricanes are as understood as arroz con pollo. So because we are where young lawyers turn when they have questions, we herewith present Rumpole's Everything You Wanted to Know About Hurricanes but were Afraid to ask.
What is a Hurricane? A hurricane is a cyclonic tropical storm that forms in the Atlantic Ocean usually between June and Novermber. It is characterized by a low barametric pressure and a cyclonic action that forms an eye.
Can You Use Nuclear Weapons to stop a Hurricane Forming?
Only if you are North Korea and the hurricane forms over South Korea. Otherwise, this is a moronic question that an idiot that lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue recently asked and answered during the Eisenhower administration.
What is the Saffir-Simpson Scale? It is a method of characterizing the strength of hurricanes from 1 to 5 with 5 being the highest. It is also utilized with the Cone-Of Death and Channel 7 (see below).
What is the Cone-of-Death? In the mid-1980's Home Depot needed a way to induce panic buying of plywood and bottles of water. At that same time Channel 7 in Miami needed to boost ratings during hurricane season. It was like Martin meeting Lewis.
Out of the needs of many the Cone-of-Death was born. The Cone is a totally unscientific way of predicting where a hurricane will be within the next few days. Anyone within the Cone-of-Death needs to panic and they need to panic NOW. In conjunction with the Cone-of Death is the Modified Saffir-Simpson scale as applied by Channel Seven in Miami:
Cat Possible Outcome
One Possible death. Go immediately and buy 200 gallons of water
Two Probable death that can only be avoided by standing
in line to buy sixteen sheets of plywood.
Three Near certain death. Buying a hundred flashlights
and accompanying batteries may help.
Four You're dead and you just don't know it. If you have a moment scurry over to someone standing in line to buy wood and tell them Andrew was worse.
Five Total Protonic Reversal. Try to imagine all life as you
know it stopping and instantaneously every
molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Standing in line to buy wood and water and batteries will make you feel braver when facing Total Protonic Reversal.
Rumpole's Hurricane Supply List:
1 Candle.
2 Bottles of Rum.
1 Flashlight.
2 Bottles of CasaAmigos Tequila which is absolutely the most smooth tequila we have ever imbibed.
2 Extra packs of batteries for the flashlight. One lighter for the candle.
1 Battery Operated Radio.
1 Bottle of Bullet Bourbon.
1 pack of energy bars.
A few apples and bananas and some bags of chips.
Ice, Ice and more ice.
A jug of water. Some grapes.
1 Edition of Ehrhardt's Evidence. When the power is out and you cannot sleep in the heat, this will put you out. Better than Ambien. Safer too. Judges obviously will not be reading such nonsense so for them we recommend the collected letters of President Trump, Vol.I, or Mike Pence's new book: "Moral Courage. How to stand up for your Principles and never compromise even when offered the second most powerful office in the world." (Really).
1 Roll Toilet paper.
1 Novel: The Picture of Dorian Gray, for obviously ironic reasons.
One Magic Marker (black) to write on the boards covering your windows "F U Dorian" or words to that effect. Also "send help" or "We are not Puerto Rico, don't abandon us." You get the idea.
