[blueherons]

Originally Posted by MojitoMe

Do an internet search for anything resembling "areas most prone to hurricanes" without even specifying Florida, and about a million hits will come up mentioning the Tampa Bay area. Here are links to the first four:

Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed

Hurricane City ranking of cities and islands

Top 5 Hurricane Vulnerable & Overdue Cities - weather.com

http://www.ihc.fiu.edu/media/docs/10...able_Areas.pdf

f
These are completely silly because as was stated earlier, hurricanes are always bigger than the state of Florida.

The bottom line is ANYWHERE in the world that is oceanfront has a fifty fifty shot at a hurricane.

It's like a nuclear bomb, it doesn't have to be a direct hit, indirect hits are worse.

[PeachInTheCity]

Im somewhat in a somewhat similar boat as you. However I currently live in Jax and am looking to move to South FL. Ive heard good things about the Delray Beach, Pompano Beach area. That is where I plan to visit and hopefully move in mid July.

Also as stated if your worried about hurricanes then you shouldnt move to FL or any other state that borders water. Every region has its natural disaster to deal with and if I had to take my pic Id rather deal with a hurricane. At least I have time and warning to get the heck out of dodge compared to say a earthquake or tornado.

[YouCan'tGoHomeAgain]

All owners at Mirror Lake Condominium are being required to pay a special assessment for termites, and the entire building will be tented for termites (for the second time) in August 2014. Also, the maintenance fee went up at Mirror Lake Condominium recently. The building is also in a high crime area (like most of downtown St. Petersburg) and it has SMALL units. Keep your wits about you.

Originally Posted by kyle19125

St Pete has some great neighborhoods. Check Old Northeast, Allendale/Five Points, Crescent Lake, Crescent Heights, Euclid/St Paul, Snell Isle, Venetian Isles, Placido Bayou, Gateway/Gandy, Jungle Terrace, Bahama Shores and Pinellas Point. The up and coming neighborhoods where younger owners are doing the remodels and making some equity are in Kenwood, Mirror Lake, Old Southeast, Round Lake and Roser Park. There are also some nice new build condo buildings in the heart of downtown which would be great for a young couple minus kids.

[YouCan'tGoHomeAgain]

HELLO!!! The reality of hurricanes is that no, actually you don't have the time and warning to get the heck out of Dodge. Hurricanes have "cones of uncertainty" covering hundreds and hundreds of miles, and those cones change paths, and so by the time that you actually KNOW that a hurricane REALLY has its eye on you (no pun intended), well, it's too late to get out, and even if it weren't and you were to get onto the highway, you'd find that it had turned into a parking lot with no way to fill up your car once it runs out of gas because the stations run out quickly (you'll see paper bags attached to the pumps). The concept of hurricanes being "better" than tornadoes is so simplistic and naive that it strains one's intelligence. P.S. Florida also has tornadoes and "water spouts." It also has SINKHOLES that swallow entire homes and even entire blocks of homes. IT'S A JUNGLE OUT THERE!!! BE CAREFUL!!!

Originally Posted by PeachInTheCity

Im somewhat in a somewhat similar boat as you. However I currently live in Jax and am looking to move to South FL. Ive heard good things about the Delray Beach, Pompano Beach area. That is where I plan to visit and hopefully move in mid July.

Also as stated if your worried about hurricanes then you shouldnt move to FL or any other state that borders water. Every region has its natural disaster to deal with and if I had to take my pic Id rather deal with a hurricane. At least I have time and warning to get the heck out of dodge compared to say a earthquake or tornado.

[kiggy]

Originally Posted by jsun556

Downtown St. Petersburg

Not on $2500 a month.

[gypsychic]

Originally Posted by YouCan'tGoHomeAgain

HELLO!!! The reality of hurricanes is that no, actually you don't have the time and warning to get the heck out of Dodge. Hurricanes have "cones of uncertainty" covering hundreds and hundreds of miles, and those cones change paths, and so by the time that you actually KNOW that a hurricane REALLY has its eye on you (no pun intended), well, it's too late to get out, and even if it weren't and you were to get onto the highway, you'd find that it had turned into a parking lot with no way to fill up your car once it runs out of gas because the stations run out quickly (you'll see paper bags attached to the pumps). The concept of hurricanes being "better" than tornadoes is so simplistic and naive that it strains one's intelligence. P.S. Florida also has tornadoes and "water spouts." It also has SINKHOLES that swallow entire homes and even entire blocks of homes. IT'S A JUNGLE OUT THERE!!! BE CAREFUL!!!

Thanks for the PSA from the "" ^^^^ LOLOL!

[EricS39]

I will say hurricanes for Northern Florida are less common than Carolina because to the East, the ocean view is northeast and hurricane attack from south and east on the Atlantic side

And gulf hurricanes will also usually hit west panhandle before hitting say Daytona

So one area not too bad off would be Ocala, Gainesville, Orlando, Lakeland, even near Daytona/St Augustine usually doesn't get hit badly

[mateo384]

Originally Posted by kiggy

Not on $2500 a month.

That's not true. I'm doing just fine.

[StarfishKey]

Originally Posted by EricS39

I will say hurricanes for Northern Florida are less common than Carolina because to the East, the ocean view is northeast and hurricane attack from south and east on the Atlantic side

And gulf hurricanes will also usually hit west panhandle before hitting say Daytona

So one area not too bad off would be Ocala, Gainesville, Orlando, Lakeland, even near Daytona/St Augustine usually doesn't get hit badly

The problem is, it's such a crapshoot to bank your entire life on. If the risk of a hurricane hit is not something you can live with, you should not move to Florida. None of those charts and guesstimates mean anything the year that temps are unusually high and conditions are abnormally favorable for formation, and you get an anomaly that shows up in your backyard. For instance, if you asked people on C-D 5 years ago about the possibility of hurricanes being a serious threat to low-lying areas of NYC in terms of property purchase, the people on that forum would have laughed you off the board. Looking at the entire recorded history of the city, it had never happened before. But then you got a Cat 1 hurricane moving in at high tide with a full moon, and surges of 13ft completely decimated property below that line. Banking on recorded histories of weather activity and on estimators is helpful to prepare, but is not really relevant when that one random storm breaks the mold. If you live on the Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico in the US, especially in a low-lying region anywhere within 100 miles of the ocean, you are at risk. And Florida is only 160 miles wide, so that means all of it.

All of Florida has clearly been established to be at risk, because of its location surrounded by warm waters, and its peninsula shape which leave the entire state vulnerable. As others mentioned, a particularly big storm that just brushes past you can touch the entire length of the state, and cause considerable damage. Additionally, people from non-hurricane areas are not that aware that while direct hit hurricanes of Cat 3 or higher are certainly a big concern, the property damage one has to be concerned about as a resident can easily come from multiple low category hurricanes, or even just several tropical storms, in a row. For instance, one June in the 1960s several tropical storms hit in a row in SFL and caused 21 FEET of rainfall! The wind and then serious flooding from something like that is going to be a problem, even if its very unusual, and even if the highest wind speeds never even reached Cat 1 status.

I had a definite phobia of hurricanes when I first moved here, which was not long after Katrina hit and caused that phobia. But, although I did have a bit of a meltdown my first year with several strong storms coming through that fortunately downgraded before hitting as more than tropical storms, I learned how to be ready and to understand the risks. The more you learn about hurricanes, the easier they are to deal with psychologically. They are not 100% predictable. But, there are many measures you can take to increase your chances of survival, and even be somewhat comfortable in the aftermath. (What I learned helped me minimize damage to my property when I happened to be up in NYC only a few blocks from the ocean when Sandy hit, compared to many of my neighbors there who made some poor decisions and had much more to deal with in the yearlong aftermath.) There's no guarantee - but if you truly can't live with the risk, do not move to FL. The risk of damaging storms is inherent with being a citizen of the state.

As a side note, the notion that there is no place in the country that is safe from life-threatening natural disasters is not really true. I grew up initially in Upstate NY. They get blizzards, have tiny earthquakes you can't feel, and at the very worst have ice storms that may knock your power out for a week. But generally speaking, if you stay in your house, you cannot die from weather up there - even from flooding, because it is high elevation. There are a few pockets of the country where there are no tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, active volcanoes, or flooding to speak of. But they are not many. Unfortunately, this naturally safe place I grew up in also had snow from October through mid-May, and personally I just did not find it worth it. Give me the scorpions, snakes, cockroaches, and hurricanes of Florida any day!