[Stealth]

someone please find out if, in the event of a CAT4 hurricane, is it best to coop up at a restaurant, in some back room, or in a steel and concrete warehouse (with a metal roof, not TOO thick)?  Warehouse looked best at the time, but i'm wondering... people say that trees help with the high speed winds, because the wind blows over the trees and just 'trickles' down, but the warehoues district it's just.... warehouses.  and our warehouse is the furthest one to the west...... sooooooooo yeah.  what think?

my internet's slow as heck for some reason.  could hardly pull this page up...

[StratComm]

Well warehouse roofs are known for getting peeled off in high wind.  A guy I went to high school with was developing something to help with that problem, but I seriously doubt your warehouse has anything like it installed.  There really isn't anywhere you can be to be "safe" from rain, as any place you go will be prone to being breached and water getting in.  However, the walls of the warehouse should be fine and the amount of wind that you would experience in there should be significantly less even if the roof does go.  A resturaunt would be more likely to stay completely dry, but in the event something goes wrong there it'll go really wrong.  I don't know what to tell you; evacuation would have been the safest bet, but you're obviously past that point.  I'd go with some residential/commercial space away from trees, personally.  But that's strictly opinion, with no real experience to back it up.

As for trees helping; that's sort of true but the risk of the trees getting knocked down is obviously more of a concern.  Even if you just get tropical-storm force winds and you haven't gotten much of that recently (as in the last 10 years or so), a lot of trees will come down and partially wooded areas will be extremely dangerous to stay in during the storm.

[WeatherOp]

Treat this like you would a tornado, first get away from the water, then find the lowest, smallest spot in a well built building.

[Bobboau]

you can't use some back roads to get the hell out of there? I understand that every highway is cloged, but does that mean that there is absolutely no way out of the city? do you have any vehicals that could posably make it off the road? if all else fails you could hop on a bicycle and move as fast as posable southwest, and when the thing hits find a ditch or something.

this warehouse you are in, is it by the bay? is it more than 30 feet above sea level?

[Janos]

Have they initiated contraflow yet?