YOUR WEEK IN PALM BEACH

The 2023 storm season has arrived: Here's to dodging another bullet

Palm Beach Post
Damage to Kings Point condos west of Delray Beach after a tornado spawned by Hurricane Ian in late September.

The 2023 storm season has arrived: Here's to dodging another bullet

It's hurricane season. And with it comes that inevitable sense of dread.

But this year feels maybe just a little more ominous. After all, Palm Beach County has managed for years now to dodge the proverbial bullet when it comes to hurricanes. Dorian. Maria. Irma. Ian. Nicole. Sure, we may get some wind. Some rain. But the big storm has avoided us for nearly two decades.

For that, we should count our blessings. Because our friends, neighbors and colleagues on the Southwest coast were not so lucky last year when Hurricane Ian came calling with Category 5 winds and 20-foot storm surge. Ditto for residents of Volusia County to our north that saw some pretty catastrophic erosion on their coastline caused by Hurricane Nicole.

We did have a tornado tear apart a condominium building in west Delray Beach. But again, it pales in comparison to the devastation in Fort Myers Beach and Sanibel; or even the severe flooding in Kissimmee that took weeks to recede from neighborhoods.

Will this storm season be the year Palm Beach County takes a hit? We certainly hope not. But who knows. As I said previously, it's been a minute; and residents certainly can't be blamed for a little complacency.

But don't be.

Hurricane Dorian made landfall in the northern Bahamas on Sept. 1, 2019.

Today, even storm forecasters are more wishy-washy than usual about what to expect this storm season. As veteran Post Weather reporter Kimberly Miller wrote in her storm season advance story this past week...

“We’ve had strong El Niños and record warm Atlantics, but the combination we just haven’t seen in the recent records,” said Phil Klotzbach, a Colorado State University meteorologist specializing in seasonal hurricane forecasts. “One is pulling one way, one is pulling the other. Who wins?”

Miller, a veteran of Atlantic hurricanes from the Florida Panhandle to Puerto Rico, will have no problem gearing up either way.

Read her story. As always, it's the most thorough, comprehensive, easy-to-understand explanation you will read of what we can all expect, and why.

But the bottom line remains that it only takes one storm to threaten and completely upend all of our lives. So be prepared. And we'll be here reporting, making sure that you're informed about how to handle your business.

This is the type of coverage that our subscribers have come to expect: Crucial. Please, check out more of our staff's work from the past week below.

I hope you enjoy and continue to support local journalism.

And you can tell a friend about us... We won't mind.

Rick Christie

Executive Editor

And you can always reach out to me at rchristie@pbpost.com and find me on Twitter at @rchristiepbp. Or send in a news tip to breakingnews@pbpost.com. Subscribe to independent reporting that supports democracy via subscribe.palmbeachpost.com.