My aunt used to live in Panama City. Her business was to run night clubs and package stores which she owned. She had one son and although I don't know what city he lives in I do know that he lives in Florida and perhaps in Panama City.
Storm surge, shallow rooted tree's, electrocution and thief's, are the most dangerous things during these storms. The trees down there are very shallow and short, they go over easily.
You should check in with your local shelter. They will have all of the necessary info you need. My grandpa has lived in Jacksonville, FL for well over 70 years. He always goes to his local shelter during hurricanes.
Isn't looking like that will be necessary for me in the Orlando area, as I won't be in any evacuation zone or anything. If that changes, I'm ready and know where they're at. I have been preparing since Thursday. All of my coworkers (about 25, mostly either Floridians or have been through a couple of these) are confident it won't require evacuation.
Surprised @BonesJones hasn't commented on this yet. Iirc he has said he tracks storms a lot or something in the past.
Ive noticed that Floridians on the coast think theyre not out of woods when they arent even close to being so. They could have a surprise Cat 5 on their doorstep. Irma was supposed to go up the east side of the peninsula and went up the West, and had generally the same setup that Dorian has now.
The steering patters are very complex. Any change in forward speed or a one or two hour delay in northward turn can make the difference of 30 miles, which could be the difference between tropical storm winds and the eyewall of a Cat 5 hurricane for the Florida coast. What's ridiculous is I've heard about many people from the coast taking down their shutters and blaming the media for "overhyping" the storm.
Yeah not referencing you! You should be fine in Orlando if you're not in a flood-prone area. It'll either make landfall to the south and stall, or it'll stall of the coast and stay off Florida. So lots of rain but I don't see a scenario where you'd have to deal with hurricane force winds. If it was this strength and making landfall headed your way at a consistently solid pace, Orlando could've easily dealt with major-hurricane force winds. I think this thing is Cat 5 now.
https://www.wunderground.com/tropical There's a blog, and the comment section on each new post is loaded with tons of people posting lots of great information from models to recon information and what not. Then you have trolls and ignorant people who don't know what they're talking about who only show up when there's a threat from a big storm.