HURRICANE IRMA AFTERMATH | What is a Hurricane? - Miami, Florida

Yeah, this is the park where I bring my daughter almost every single day. One of the main trees that was here is gone. Hi guys, David Hoffman here from DavidsBeenHere.com. I'm here in my hometown of Miami, Florida and I just got back from Dallas and the reason I was there is because Hurricane Irma almost destroyed my home city. We were so lucky not to get hit directly by the hurricane. Hurricane Irma was a Category 5 and then eventually dropped down to a 4, 3, 2 and then you know obviously disappeared. I mean we got like a lot of winds here. As you can see this is my house. This is one of the trees that fell. As you can see the cleanup crews are coming through and cleaning all the mess. I mean trees are everywhere. I'm going to take you around my neighborhood. This is like South Gables, Coral Gables, South Miami and just like trees, non-stop trees. I mean we're very lucky nothing went on our house but my father has a hole on his roof right now. There's debris everywhere. Look at that. Look down the street. It's crazy. So this was the most intense hurricane to strike the U.S. since Katrina in 2005 which basically destroyed New Orleans. It was the first hurricane to make landfall in Florida since Wilma in 2005. We also felt the effects of that one. Irma hit the Florida Keys and basically almost annihilated the keys. I think 95% of the homes and buildings there have been destroyed or affected. I think over 500 people actually stayed in the keys and that's basically like you know committing suicide because it's insane right now out there. I mean you can't even get to the keys. You know some of the islands in the Caribbean that were completely destroyed by the hurricane when it was a category 5 are Barbuda which has zero people right now. It's the first time in over 300 years that not one soul is on the island. St. Barts, Anguilla, St. Martins and the Virgin Islands all were hit or almost destroyed by Hurricane Irma. Let's get my car in. I'm going to show you what this place looks like. It's just debris everywhere man. I can't even lift this thing. It's like it's a giant. Can't move it. Yeah I'm very lucky that nothing fell on my car or my wife's car. Just a lot of debris from the trees. We did get category 1 winds. We're very lucky nothing actually happened to our house. Now this house had a huge tree that fell. Look at this. I mean the winds weren't that bad but they were over 100 miles an hour. Another thing that's very scary during a hurricane is the you know the lack of gas, petroleum in the city because everybody's rushing to get gas and then you know drive out of the state. I know it was insane. I saw on the news people were fighting in lines at the grocery stores just to get water and look at this tree. Don't want to be around for hurricane. You know I remember when I was a kid I used to love like getting ready for a hurricane and I actually went through one of the worst hurricanes to ever hit Miami. It's called Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and it was about a month that we were stuck in Aventura which is like north part of Miami and we were stuck. I mean we were stuck in a hotel. The whole city was flooded. Trees were everywhere. The zoo was crazy. Every animal escaped. We had the National Guard here. It was an insane time and I can't even imagine that happening again and even now after this hurricane you know there's debris everywhere. It's been already three days since the winds hit and still most people don't have power and won't have power for another week or 10 days. I'm like one of the lucky souls to have power. I know a few other people that have power but my parents don't have power. My mother-in-law doesn't have power. Almost everything is closed. Most restaurants are closed and yeah I mean my heart goes out to everybody that was affected by Hurricane Irma and everybody affected by Hurricane Harvey in Houston. If a hurricane is coming the best thing to do is get your house ready and leave that city and go somewhere else within the country because no point of being around for a hurricane. It's really risky. Things can go wrong. Tornadoes can come. It's not worth you know risking your life or risking your family's lives for to be in a hurricane. My sister was one of the only people I know that escaped and she went to the Caribbean on a cruise because she works for Royal Caribbean. They were on a cruise ship in the southern Caribbean for about you know six days just you know waiting it out hoping nothing happens and they came back and they have no power so now they're like you know what are we doing here. It looks really bad but we didn't even get hit. We got hit by like Category 1 winds and the storm was a Category 5. I think it hit Key West as a Category 4. Some of you watching this video don't really understand what a hurricane is. Well a hurricane is basically a tropical cyclone which has at least 74 mile per hour winds and that's a Category 1 hurricane. Now once it gets to a 5 that contains winds exceeding 156 miles per hour. If a Category 5 hits it's like Armageddon. Yeah this is the park where I bring my daughter almost every single day. As you can see one of the main trees that was here is gone and the reason why this happens in Miami is because we are on coral rock so all these trees their roots don't go too deep. That's crazy. Hope you guys enjoyed this video and I'll see you guys next time. Peace!