Category 5: 'What If' the Big One Hit Lake City?

EDITOR'S NOTE: The following story is based on the possible scenario of a Category 5 hurricane sweeping through North Central Florida. To help illustrate the importance of preparedness, this story uses tracks of previous storms and quotes from local and national tropical weather experts to comment on this fictitious, while possible, hurricane.

While much of the Suwannee River Valley sleeps on Sept. 4, Hurricane Emily is born several hundred miles off the Cape Verde Islands. Not yet named, the tropical wave moves directly west at 29 mph. Even with the memory of the hurricanes of 2004, the community's mind is on other things.
But within less than two weeks, the monster soon frightens coastline populations from South Florida to Texas as a Category 5 hurricane.
Formation of hurricanes like Emily begin when the air is warmed by contact with ocean waves and moistened by evaporation. As the air warms, it rises, spiraling inward toward the system's center. The closer it gets to the center, the faster the motion. Three conditions determine how a potential hurricane like Emily will strengthen: warm surface waters, high humidity and the ability to concentrate heat.
As the wave continues its forward movement across warm waters, it develops the counter-clockwise, cyclonic circulation typical of North Atlantic tropical storms. A day later, the wind speed reaches 40 mph, and the hurricane center upgrades it to a tropical storm named Emily. By the time Emily hits the Dominican Republic on Sept. 8, she has become the year's third hurricane with winds of 76 mph.

Emily wreaks havoc

Even as a Category1 hurricane, Emily leaves havoc in the Dominican Republic, killing 12 people and leaving thousands homeless. She loses some punch, dropping temporarily to tropical storm force, and is somewhat disorganized as she skirts the southern tip of Cuba near Guantanamo Bay.
But by Sept. 10, Emily meanders in the warm waters of the Caribbean Sea, where she will regain much of her power back over the next couple of days.
Emily appears headed directly for the Yucatan Peninsula, but on the following day, Columbia County residents, along with the rest of Florida, receives an unwelcome surprise. Forecasts show Emily taking a definite turn northward into the Gulf of Mexico. The danger of a direct hit on the northwest Florida coast is a definite possibility.

Small eyes have it

The most intense hurricanes rotate around relatively small eyes, less than 10 miles in diameter. The center is relatively calm and is the area with the lowest pressure. But immediately around this calm center is the hurricane's most violent area - the eye wall. Moist air rushes toward the eye, spiraling upward to create the eye wall. Once atop the eye, the air cools and descends back into the storm.
By now, Emily's hurricane force winds cover thousands of square miles, and her tropical storm force winds cover areas 10 times larger. Along the contours of the spiral rain bands are dense clouds where torrential rains fall. Lightning glows in these rain bands, and turbulence whips the cloudy terrain.
Emily all but misses the Yucatan Peninsula and is already close to hurricane status again one day later. By Sept. 11, exactly one week after she was detected by the hurricane center. Emily is packing 109 mph winds and is making a curve toward the northwest.
Two days later, the hurricane is up to 127 mph, and there are hurricane warnings along the Florida, Alabama and Mississippi coasts. Emily is still two days away, but the hurricane center is reporting the probable strike zone stretches from the Tampa area to New Orleans.

Steaming ashore

On Sept. 12, there are many unoccupied businesses and offices in Lake City as people scurry to grocery stores to stock up on supplies since Emily, now a Category 3 hurricane, is only a day away and appears headed directly to Cedar Key, much like the 1986 hurricane did when it devastated the entire region.

Take shelter

Columbia County Emergency Management and American Red Cross have begun establishing shelters and advising residents to begin making preparations. Emily continues to strengthen over the next couple of days, reaching Category 4 status in the early morning hours of Sept. 14 with 132 mph winds, and more strengthening is expected. Just before Emily blows ashore shortly after midnight on Sept. 15, weather reconnaissance shows wind strength has reached 158 mph. That wind strength is expected to remain at landfall, making Emily the nation's first Category 5 storm at landfall since Andrew in 1992.
Emily is moving fast and still packing 132 mph winds when the eye reaches Columbia County with gusts as high as 175. How seriously residents took the hurricane's threat will determine how the community fares when the storm passes.
Fortunately, Hurricane Emily was only make-believe. When the next threat becomes real, the only question that matters is: Will Columbia County be ready?