Hurricane Irma: South Florida's Calm Before The Storm And Pizza Too

DELRAY BEACH, FL — At Jack’s Pizzeria and Italian Restaurant, you can get two slices and a Coke for $5.50. But on Friday night Jack was up to his elbows in mozzarella cheese and 30 years of advice on how to survive one of the largest and potentially most deadly hurricanes ever to churn over the Atlantic. The Polish-American, New Jersey transplant has seen them all — Andrew, Charley, Wilma, Matthew and now Irma.

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In addition to a good New York-style pizza, Jack’s customers seemed hungry for one last chance to rub elbows with fellow South Floridians before the storm of the century came knocking on their plywood and aluminum-covered homes.

“I’m down here 30 years. I’ve been through a lot of hurricanes,” Wnuk offered as he stretched a ball of dough into a pizza. “It’s not my first rodeo.”

Just about all of the other businesses near his family-style pizza restaurant were already closed by 10 p.m. Many storefronts were covered in plywood. Some of the businesses hadn’t bothered to open at all on Friday. (For more hurricane news or local news from Florida, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters from Miami Patch, and click here to find your local Florida Patch. If youhave an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

There was also a McDonald’s that was still open in nearby Boynton Beach, a few miles further north. The independently owned fast food restaurant was planning to stay open until 2 p.m. on Saturday. The drive thru had managed to attract a line of cars that wrapped around the building.

"Get water. Get batteries. Make sure if you are in the flood zone, move out of it — and pray," Wnuk advised. "What are you going to do? You can’t run."

For much of South Florida, Friday marked the calm before the storm. It was probably the last time that most people here would be able to finish boarding up their homes, making a grocery run or finding some precious gasoline before Irma’s arrival.

Some took comfort in storm models that showed Irma shifting toward Florida’s West Coast. Others hoped for the best but feared the worst.

The iconic Ocean Drive area of South Beach was teeming with television crews rather than the usual crowds of weekend revelers.

Most Miami Beach residents seem to have heeded the warnings to leave.

“We’re ready as we can be. The shutters are up. The house is entirely sandbagged up to two feet — all the doors, the garage door and what not,” acknowledged Andy Schefter, who stopped by Jack’s to pick up two pies — one plain and one pepperoni — with his wife Erika and daughter Alex, 11.

The family is among the 660,000 facing mandatory evacuation orders in flood-prone areas of Miami, which is a little more than an hour south of Delray Beach.

“We evacuated to here,” Andy Schefter told Patch. The family was staying at his mother’s home, not far from Jack’s Pizzeria. “We’re basically running from storm surge.”

Like many South Floridians, the Schefters took the evacuations seriously.

“We’re scared for our house, the neighborhood. Certainly there’s always going to be worries. But my mother’s house has been through a number (of hurricanes) — Charley, Wilma, Katrina,” said Andy Schefter, who is a film and television producer. “She has experienced maybe not a Cat 4, but has experienced I guess up to a 3. There’s always a little bit of fear.”

For daughter Alex, this is a new experience

“I’m petrified,” she admitted, having been through only Hurricane Matthew, which veered away from the Miami area at the last moment. After hours of preparation, that storm knocked down one tree at the family's home not far from the 79th Street Causeway that leads into Miami Beach.

Even the prospect of having time off from Miami Arts Charter School isn't all that appealing.

“I’m a nerd. I like school,” she confided. “I enjoy school.”

Hurricanes, maybe not so much. Of course, the pizza helps.

Also See: Miami Beach Residents Staying Despite Evacuation

Customers wait for pizza late Friday night prior to Hurricane Irma's anticipated arrival in South Florida. Photo by Paul Scicchitano.