IN THE 'CONE' ZONE SOS ignored: nursing home
Furious José sets course for Gotham
Officials at the Florida nursing home where eight residents died in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma reportedly called Gov. Rick Scott for assistance hours before the first death, but help never arrived.
The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills rang Scott three times using a special cellphone number that he gave out to healthcare execs, CBS Miami reported.
But instead of sending the “immediate assistance” they asked for, nursing-home officials said they never heard back.
The governor’s office, however, claims this was not the case. No way, José! The Big Apple is in Hurricane José’s “cone of uncertainty” — and could experience wild weather next week, meteorologists said Friday.
“Much of our area is now in the 5 day cone of uncertainty,” National Weather Service’s New York City office tweeted. “Be prepared for potential impacts Tuesday/Wednesday.”
The storm was churning in the Atlantic with 75 mph winds and was expected to drift north over the weekend.
It could brush the New Jersey coast Tuesday or remain a few hundred miles out at sea, said AccuWeather meteorologist Dave Bowers.
But even if it hits the East Coast, it’ll likely weaken as it moves through cooler waters.
“It may well lose its tropical characteristics by the time it gets to New York,” Bowers said.
“It could be the equivalent of a strong nor’easter with gusty winds and a lot of rain, some coastal flooding — or next to nothing.”
The National Weather Ser- vice defines a “cone of uncertainty” as the area representing the probable path of the center of a tropical cyclone.
“About two-thirds of the time, the center of the storm will remain in the cone,” the service said in a graphic.
Twitter users were quick to mock the storm jargon.
“Does anyone want to start a band with me? I’d like to call it ‘Cone of Uncertainty,’ ” wrote Sara Miller.
And a user calling herself only Laura quipped, “Life is a cone of uncertainty tbh.”
José is expected to fluctuate between a hurricane and tropical storm over the next several days.
Meanwhile, an official said Hurricane Irma had “extinguished” 300 years of civilization on Barbuda, leaving all of its 1,800 resident homeless.
“The damage is complete,” Ronald Sanders, Antigua and Barbuda’s ambassador to the United States, told Public Radio International. “For the first time in 300 years, there’s not a single living person on the island of Barbuda.”