Your recollection of Irma's intensity is not particularly accurate. It was never anywhere near 180 mph "just before landfall" unless you were in the Leeward Islands on September 6. Irma crossed the Florida Keys on September 10 as a weak category 4, with 130 mph winds, but it didn't dwindle to that weak category 4 status, it intensified to it. When it left Cuba and turned toward Florida, on September 9, it was only a category 2 (and there was nothing magical about why it dwindled to a category 2 — it was because it ran into Cuban terrain). It did weaken a bit, down to a 115 mph Cat 3, between the Keys and it's second landfall in Collier County.

Hurricane Dorian, in 2019, was almost a "Cat 6" kind of experience for Florida. It made landfall in the Bahamas with 185 mph winds and then just parked itself there, barely moving, for 24+ hours, maintaining Cat 5 strength the whole time. If it had done that on Florida's east coast, as it was once forecast to, the economic destruction would have been unbelievable.

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eth0up 2 days ago | parent [-]

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	▲	eth0up 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		I re-read this thread thinking I may have been unnecessarily harsh. No. I am apparently supposed to forget my experience of being in the eye of Irma for over an hour, and presumably the hurricane altogether and all memories of my time within it and efforts to mitigate its aftermath - all because wunderboy pasted an AI summary of Irma's path in attempt to further belittle my little post, based on the profound impetus of imperfect punctuation. If HN can't call out this kind of desperate opportunism, lurking in strange places waiting to trounce on any opening to expose oneself as an erudite hero wielding an elaborate encyclopedic remedy to a misplaced comma, then your future here may involve many bots. And really, that should be the job of a bot - dealing with other bots or trivial wankers who stand tall and proud upon the bodies they've sucker punched. If so, a bot is welcome to take my place too.