Happy Hurricane Season!!!

[Michelle.]

June 1st till November 30th.

Let the "fun and games" begin.

The coast appears clear, for now.

I had the following thought once while sitting in the "tuna can."

"Did all this madness start because a West African farted in our direction a few weeks ago?"

[Bombi]

It's Hurricane Suplication day in the VI, the first day of hurricane season.
Last year we had Omar, it moved fast and there wasn't a lot of damage except to the landscape and power poles. I had no power for 3 weeks.

Make sure you are prepared and have a plan, don't take unnecessary risks.
Be safe.

[lisagurl]

You know we can build things to withstand hurricanes. It is that people want more throw away junk instead of quality in less quantity.

[Suzy]

Oh I am really looking forward to this.  We were not cleaned up from Rita yet, and then Ike came in with a direct hit.   If we get another this year, I am just giving up.  Until you have been through this you have no idea what it is like!

Kristi

[Michelle.]

You know we can build things to withstand hurricanes. It is that people want more throw away junk instead of quality in less quantity.

The house is, knock on wood, secure thru 145MPH winds. Actually all new construction after Andrew is required to withstand Cat5, at least in South Florida.

After being directly under Wilma's eye, sustained gusts of 120MPH. I want nothing todo with anything above low Cat3, as in I'll board up the house and hop a flight out of PBIA.

Kristi, I cant recall if it was Rita or Ike. But at one point the storm was 145MPH sust. with the projection coming in right at Palm Beach, FL. I was literally beggining to load up the car. The next day though it was headed to the Gulf.

[Syne]

I am inland enough not to have to worry about it. Only once in about every 10 years and it has only been... well a little over ten years.   

[Michelle.]

Remember that small B/W battery operated TV?

As of today it's no longer a working TV. Per the digital TV transition.

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090613/ap_on_hi_te/us_tec_digital_tv_transition

Oh well, one more thing to add to this weekends shopping list.
New gas grill, with sideburner.
French coffee press.
Ground coffee, yuck.  But beats no coffee when the power is out for days/weeks at a time.

[Cindy]

Out of interest,
I'm in South Australia and we don't get hurricanes, bush fires yes, but nothing like the hurricanes you get. What is the worst part of them? Is it destruction from the wind? Other buildings and junk hitting your property? Flooding?. I know it must be horrible to experience, but what is the experience?
In the big bush fires we get it is the speed and temperature of the fire. It's almost alive. They can travel 20km in minutes and then change direction. Houses and trees etc just explode. If you are outside you are just incinerated. I'm not trying to troll bad memories but just interested for info from the front line.

Hope you all keep safe
Cindy

[Syne]

The worst part is not knowing. I have been in a hurricane that had winds over 110mph. Even went on my back deck to feel the wind before things became interesting. The wind is loud, almost like a freight train coming through. I could see the trees being bent over and even a few fall over. I was worried that they would be thrown or fall through the house. Then the eye hits, you breathe a bit and check things out while watching the sky. Once you start hearing that noise and seeing the wall, you head back in and wait the rest of it out.

No television, very little radio, no land lines, no cell phone, and no electricity until a few hours after. You are very much cut off from the world and it can seem a little surreal. But it is the not knowing what is going to happen that can be the worst of it.

[Bombi]

We went through Omar last October. Winds of 165 MPH and 10 inches of rain in just 6 hours. All the vegitation was stipped of it's leaves, roads washed out and flooded, trees and utility poles down and no power for 3 weeks ( we have a generator). No cable for 6 weeks but I had my radio tuned to PBS and plenty of books. Our neighbors banded together and helped each other and we got recovered ok. I still have a landslide in my back yard to get cleaned up. I built my little west Indian cottage to with stans 200= MPH winds. We lost poer at 9:00 Pm and went to bed and read by latern for a while then I slept right through it untill it stopped about 2 AM, it was a fast moving storm.
I have experienced several other hurricanes in New England and in the Caribbean so I wasn't as paniced as my SO. She was a mess for a few days. Then everything got really green and it was beautiful but it sure screwed uo the fruit harvest.
The property I manage is right on the water and it suffered @ $100K damage. It's all cleaned up now and we are getting ready for the season. Everbody pay attention and stay safe!

[Michelle.]

Cindy James, "Is it destruction from the wind? Other buildings and junk hitting your property? Flooding?. I know it must be horrible to experience, but what is the experience?"

First off though, an Aussie style brushfire sounds like hell on earth.

Hurricanes are weird in that easch one is a completly different animal. Some thing hold tru though. Like you don't want to be in a mobile home or older structure.

Stuff hitting my home is among my worst "fears," it only takes a small hole to the eaves  overhanging the side off the house to begin taking off the roof. The impact glass/shutters though protects from most, if not all, flying stuff.

Flooding... by means of rain can be a problem. However if your on the coast "storm surge," is the reason why areas close to the coast are evacuated.

The experince... being inside the literal eyewall of a low cat3 storm was probably the most eerie and spooky exp of my life. Than the upstairs off the house started shaking as Wilma's backhalf passed overhead.

The cool factor to that. With the aforementioned B/W TV, I was able to track the "feeder bands" as they were about to hit the area that I live in, down to within a minute.

[Cindy]

Thanks for the replies girls.

None of these natural disasters are a bundle of laughs.
I get the impression that you are getting more frequent and larger hurricanes over the last few years.
And then there are tornadoes. The destruction form them seems awesome from the news stories. Again I think one of the most frightening of the things from bushfire to tornadoes are the randomness. One house and family destroyed. Next door not touched. Although the last fires we had in Victoria were essentialy non-survivable. Whole communities were wiped out 100mph winds and 1000C fire front. I realise you have horrific fires as well, as does France , Spain and Greece just to mention a few! I feel very sad for anyone caught up in these terrible events. And not forgetting the poor people enduring drought and famine in other parts of the world.

Love and Hugs to all, and wishing you a very safe season.

Cindy

[Chaunte]

Water is the number one killer in a hurricane - either through storm surge or flooding.

If your home is not up to code, the winds can rip the roof off a house and cause the walls to collapse.  If the windows & doors cave in from the force of the wind, the storm is, for all intents and purposes, inside your home.

Unlike a tornado, which lasts seconds, a hurricane is beating on you for upwards of 12 hours.  It can drop over 18 inches (50 cm) of rain during those 12 hours.

Kristi & Michelle know of this ferocity first hand.  Hurricane Andrew had an estimated sustained winds of 155 mph (250kph) as it made landfall.  Hurricane Rita had sustained winds at the eyewall of 185 mph - 300 kph.  Rita was even stronger than Katrina, and we all saw what Katerina did to New Orleans.

When Nature has a temper tantrum - whether through brush fires, hurricanes, tornados, volcanic eruptions or earthquakes - it is best to get out of the way.

Shauna