Pensacola was supposed to be the safe side.
Hurricane Isaias made landfall near Destin on the night of October 9. In a normal hurricane, the worst winds hit east of the eye. Pensacola sits west. People there expected the weaker side.
They got the worst of it instead.
A gust of 117 mph was recorded in the Pensacola area. That was the highest wind reading of the entire storm. Pensacola saw gusts over 100 mph. Gulf Breeze saw 95. The National Weather Service issued a rare extreme wind warning. That is the kind of warning that tells you to shelter like a tornado is coming.
The cause was something called a sting jet. Most people have never heard of one. Here is what it is.
A sting jet is a narrow band of violent wind, about 30 miles wide, that drops straight out of the sky. Dry air gets pulled into a storm. It plunges from miles up to the ground in a few hours. On satellite imagery it looks like a scorpion’s tail. That is where the name comes from.
Sting jets belong to winter storms. They form in the kind of storms that have cold fronts and warm fronts. Hurricanes do not have fronts. They run on a completely different engine. A sting jet inside a hurricane is like finding snow in a thunderstorm. It should not happen.
Isaias made it happen because it was changing. As it came ashore, it was morphing from a tropical hurricane into a non-tropical storm. That transition opened the door. Dry air wrapped into the system. The sting jet formed. It slammed the west side.
This matters for your claim
If your home or business sits west of Destin and took heavy damage, some people may question it. The storm hit east, they might say. Your side should have been fine.
Your side was not fine. The science says so. The 117 mph reading says so. The extreme wind warning says so.
Carrier scopes are rarely nearly as complete as they should be. When damage does not match what an adjuster expects to see, line items get left out. Do not let a map of where the eye came ashore decide what your property is owed.
A Public Adjuster represents the policyholder. The insurance company’s adjuster represents the insurance company. That is how the system works.
We offer a free inspection and a free claim review. Call 800.511.2240.
Do not settle for less than you deserve.
this is very interesting and something I had not heard before.. thanks for sharing.