Hurricane!

The study is the first investigation by the state into payouts by both FEMA and Citizens in Miami-Dade County. The federal agency has paid out $31 million to residents there and the insurance company more than $22 million for Hurricane Frances, even though the Labor Day storm made landfall more than 100 miles to the north.

"In Hurricane Jeanne, I saw in South Beach about 100-plus surfers, and you had a cop bullhorning people in. The waves were one to three-foot. They weren't big, but there was a hurricane and they think there's this crisis."

Yes, . . . we are alive and doing FANTASTIC! We apologize for our poor communication but because of Hurricane Ivan the places where we had planned to send updates from did not have power. First we endured Hurricane Frances at the beginning of our hiking journey and we were fortunate to send out News Update #2 just before we lost power at the Dutch Haas. But that was not to be the end of hurricanes this year because Hurricane Ivan came next and left us without access to electricity in the Shenandoah National Park (SNP) section of the AT.

On August 13, Hurricane Charley devastated Southwest Florida and parts of central Florida. Charley was especially brutal to Special Training and Rehabilitation of Charlotte County (STAR).

He further noted that some 60 percent of homeowners in New Providence have private wells and do not purchase water from the Corporation. These people have not experienced the problems incurred by the utility company over the past seven months after Hurricane Frances. "I am advised that this hurricane, without a direct hit on Andros, nevertheless, resulted in seawater inundating the well field as a result of a tidal surge. To date, although significantly quality improvements have been made through quick corrective measures taken by the Corporation, previous levels have not been fully re-established."

Such crews have become almost business as usual, though, as coastal Poquoson labors to recover from its $100 million devastation by Hurricane Isabel with lots -- and lots-- of volunteer help.

Hurricane Charley continues to do damage in Southwest Florida.

From dealing with the reams of red tape the Federal Emergency Management Agency puts in the path of relief to just not getting answers, hurricane-related problems like these were among the issues brought Monday during a special town hall meeting at Port Charlotte High School.

Although intended to be solely about problems people are having with FEMA, many took advantage of the public forum to discuss the problems they are having with insurance, contractors and permitting.

New findings show Hurricane Ivan caused massive erosion of beaches, dunes and barrier islands along the Gulf Coast and underscore how vulnerable the American coastline is to hurricanes.

Having a plan to prepare for the worst is great, but as two county officials said this week, no plan could prepare them for what Hurricane Charley brought.

The recommendation to authorize local officials to order evacuations is one of 18 Perry made Thursday in answer to a report on the state's hurricane preparedness. Perry ordered the review of Texas' plans following the deadly hurricanes that hit Florida one after another last summer.

The $354 million in the storm reserve, which took 11 years to build up, was exhausted by hurricanes Charley and Frances. There was nothing left in the fund to pay for damage caused by Hurricane Jeanne. Charley, Frances and Jeanne cost FPL and its customers $890 million - leaving a $536 million shortfall.

Herbert LaMorder's pale yellow bungalow burned down in September during Hurricane Frances.

Hanners is talking about one of the many houses his family ownes. It's also one of the many homes they lost during Hurricane Ivan.

Needs were developed through interviews with area emergency services managers and by looking at reports of disasters such as the 2001 jetliner attacks and Hurricane Isabel, Cunningham said. The Board of Trade will work with local public managers to keep the list current and make sure the appropriate emergency centers get the aid, she said.

Too many of Brevard's 160,000 barrier island residents braved Hurricane Jeanne without evacuating, Lay said.

For the second time, a local physician has been honored for his efforts in providing health care after Hurricane Charley struck the area.

Commissioner Ron Vath estimated the city spends about $100,000 a year to maintain the pier. The city's insurance did not cover the damage from Hurricane Frances, Vath said.

The storms caused about $45 billion in damage and were directly responsible for more than 3,000 deaths in Haiti, all from Hurricane Jeanne, and 60 in the United States -- from storm surge, tornados, flooding wind and rip currents.

Hurricane Charley was a killer looking for victims, Charlotte County Emergency Management Director Wayne Sallade told an attentive audience Wednesday at the 27th Annual National Hurricane Conference.

Remember that classic line from former Bush domestic policy advisor John DiIulio: "There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus. What you've got is everything – and I mean everything – being run by the political arm." We just keep finding examples to bolster the statement, don't we?

Florida was a close race in a state with 27 electoral votes. What happens when there's a natural disaster? The powers that be immediately start wondering what they need to do to reap the biggest political rewards. Again, there is no tactic too cynical, no ploy too crass, no maneuver too callous for this gang. Everything is a political opportunity to be exploited. Everything.

Some of the roads damaged by slides caused when remnants of Hurricane Ivan tore through Washington and Greene counties last September soon will be repaired.

Mainly, he'll look for better ways to get people to leave when storms such as Hurricane Jeanne aim our way.

Grand Cayman was hit hard last fall by Hurricane Ivan. Evidence of the hurricane's destructive force is everywhere. Many of the trees on the island were knocked down, and those still standing lean to the west. Many hotels and businesses are still closed, and some roads remain closed for repair. Turtle Reef used to be home to a large school of tarpon that would hang out in an underwater grotto and part like a curtain when you swam through them. Alas, the tarpon left with the hurricane, but Turtle Reef still has more than its share of Parrotfish and other colorful Caribbean denizens. Today we saw a barracuda and a stingray.

So this is the third time in 6 months that President Bush has been to Pensacola. The first time was to survey hurricane Ivan damage (I’ll never forget the beautiful sight of AF1 flying over, bringing me out of the state of shock I had been in the previous couple of days.) The next visit was a campaign stop. And now today. Next time many locals will probably start yawning.

Yes, for this hike we have been christened with new trail names by Lois and Earl Arnold, owners and operators of the Dutch Haas B&B. We stayed at their Bed & Breakfast last year to wait out Hurricane Isabel and we arrived this year with Hurricane Frances, so now we are known as the Hurricane Sisters, Spirit/Frances and Smasher/Isabel! Beth and I arrived at the Dutch Haas after both of us drove through the driving rains of Hurricane Frances most of the day. We were to begin our hiking journey on the 8th of Sept. but decided to wait out the torrential downpours, high winds and downed trees as the remnants of Hurricane Frances passed through.

Six months after Hurricane Ivan's landfall over Gulf Shores, residents remain homeless. The oyster population largely is decimated. The state and businesses along the shore stand to lose millions of dollars in revenue, and repairs still are under way.

Eighteen months after Hurricane Isabel, recovery is still under way in parts of Virginia.

Conectiv has done poorly in the annual J.D. Power survey for the last several years, ranking below the national average and low when compared to East Coast utilities.

For the past two years, the companies have had to deal with widespread blackouts caused by hurricanes. The current ranking may have been influenced by those events, said Conklin.

In response to the worst blackout in company history, state regulators ordered Conectiv last year to change the way it responds to massive power outages. That blackout in September 2003, a result of Hurricane Isabel, knocked out power to 109,000 customers for up to a week.

Anger at the company built up as the blackout dragged on and customers were not given any information about when their power would be restored, a Conectiv policy that has since been reversed.

Take hurricane season, when powerful waves pound the beach. This is not a time for beginners or inexperienced surfers, Schmidt cautions. "We don't like to bring students out into waves that are over three feet.

"If you're gonna start charging bigger waves, you got to be a good swimmer," he says. "I've done 6-, 9-, 10-, 12-foot waves, and when you wipe out on a wave like that, it tends to hold you under. You gotta have lung capacity and know how to swim and stay calm in those situations.

"In Hurricane Jeanne, I saw in South Beach about 100-plus surfers, and you had a cop bullhorning people in. The waves were one- to three-foot. They weren't big, but there was a hurricane and they think there's this crisis."

Hurricanes aside, surfing is "extremely relaxing; it's spiritual ... You're on your surfboard riding some waves. What could be better than that?"

Gulf Coast residents were caught off guard on Aug. 13, when a Category 4 Hurricane Charley slammed into Punta Gorda. The black line drawn on maps by forecasters hours earlier showed a Category 2 storm hitting Tampa, about 100 miles to the north.

Hurricane specialist James Franklin said 24 hours before landfall, the probability of Charley's core hitting Tampa or Port Charlotte was the same: 30 percent.

"If people had been looking at this probability product rather than focusing on the line, nobody would have come to the conclusion they were safer in Port Charlotte than Tampa," Franklin said.

The hurricane center is considering getting rid of the skinny black line, or projected path, and replacing it with circles or dots to emphasize a much broader cone of uncertainty.

A jury on Tuesday found a Louisiana man guilty of unlicensed contracting during a state of emergency after Hurricane Charley struck the area.

Frank Andrew Russo, a former insurance claims agent who came to the area after Hurricane Charley hit, was sent to the Charlotte County Jail where he will wait for the results of a pre-sentence investigation. He faces a maximum of five years in prison.

Russo's case is the first to go to trial from more than 100 being handled by the 20th District State Attorney's Office. Russo, 38, is also the first in the county to face the charge as a third-degree felony. Gov. Jeb Bush changed the status of the crime from a misdemeanor to a felony after four hurricanes struck Florida in 2004.

The 18-page report by the governor's Office of Homeland Security was the result of Perry's call in September for an assessment of the state's hurricane preparedness. The assessment and report were led by Steve McCraw, Perry's homeland security director.

Alabama Gov. Bob Riley has appointed a 19-member task force to study insurance issues. The move follows months of complaints related to Hurricane Ivan recovery and a decision by one firm to end wind coverage for some homeowners.

It's been a long process of permitting, planning and waiting, but Riverboat-on-the-Potomac owner Penny Flanagan hopes visitors will be able to return to the Colonial Beach landmark by the end of November.

"We're finally getting excited about it now," Flanagan said this week.

The Riverboat, a pier off the Potomac shore in Colonial Beach, housed a restaurant, arcade, liquor store and Maryland off-track betting parlor until Hurricane Isabel wrecked it in September 2003.

FEMA has promised $600 million to local government to date. Brown added that auditors were monitoring the distribution of the funds. FEMA has paid more than $30 million to about 13,000 residents of Miami-Dade, even though the county received no hurricane-force winds. Ten Miami-Dade County residents have pleaded not guilty to charges they cheated the federal government by filing false aid claims for property damage from Hurricane Frances.

"As much as we are focused on the recovery ... we must also prepare for the 2005 hurricane season," said Craig Fugate, director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management. "It looks to be another active year."

The Atlantic-Gulf season runs from June 1 through November, but storms can occur before or after.

PENSACOLA, Fla. Hurricane Ivan is forcing a second wave of people from their homes six months after it hit.

Some are leaving because mold has made the buildings health hazards and others who lost their jobs are running out of rent or mortgage money.

Some have also had to leave rental homes. Landlords haven't repaired the damage because they lack insurance, plan to make other use of the property or are delaying so they can charge higher rents after tenants leave.

The recommendations were contained in the governor's "Texas Hurricane Preparedness" report, which Perry ordered after a series of hurricanes struck Florida last year.

The federal government will pay for just under 30 (m) million dollars of the damage that Hurricane Isabel did to Virginia roads.

The storm in September 2003 caused more than 70 (m) million in damage to Virginia's road system.

The U-S Department of Transportation provides emergency help to pay for repairs to eligible highways seriously damaged by natural disasters.

Officials will be more prepared for the upcoming hurricane season because of what the 2004 season taught them about lane reversals, shelter needs and rapid response for evacuations when a storm suddenly turns, a state hurricane manager said Wednesday at the end of the 2005 S.C. Hurricane/Emergency Management Workshop.

"There were several firsts even though many consider this was not a significant season for us. It was a very significant season," said Jon Boettcher, hurricane program manager for the S.C. Emergency Management Division, which sponsored the workshop. "It was the busiest season in 110 years" for S.C. residents. Hurricane season begins June 1 and ends Nov. 30.

The damage from Hurricane Charley was only the beginning of Beatrice Stanley's troubles.

Stanley said her family had to take the carpets out themselves because they couldn't stand to breathe inside the house.

Charley tore off shingles and siding, collapsed ceilings and flooded the inside of her Kissimmee home. However, when Stanley went to her insurance company of 15 years to get the damage fixed, she was told her policy had been canceled.

"That was worse than a nightmare. I didn't know where to turn," she said.

How does a hurricane form? Many large thunderstorms come together over ocean water and begin to swirl like a vortex. When this vortex becomes powerful enough, it is called a hurricane. It's easy to make your own model of a hurricane using plastic soda bottles.

We are "hunkering down" (you have no idea how tired I am of that particular phrase--there you go cheri, more fodder for conversation)

Hurricane force gusts and tropical storm force sustained winds.

Flooding.

All roads closed to anywhere--not that a car could maintain an upright position.

The Eye of Frances is now completely over land, wind speeds dropping, pressure rising.

I fell asleep sometime around 1am and slept until 4am. Craig is finally sleeping now.

Kids should be up anytime.

We are only about 1/2 way through this storm.

I had an interesting conversation with Bob (pictured) who works at the car rental return facility. Bob said that he endured the wrath of hurricane Charley in his home on the south side of Cape Coral. His wife had gone to an emergency shelter, but he did not. He thought that the hurricane would switch paths and that it would not be much of a threat in the end. He was wrong. He said the house cracked and popped during the highest winds. There was also a loud roar. Amazingly, the house suffered very little damage. Other homes in that same area suffered major damage. Bob said that he will never again ignore warnings and will go to a shelter or evacuate elsewhere. He never wants to go through something like that again.

The NOAA web site has a graphical depiction of Project Stormfury Hypothesis. Here's another article on Project Stormfury. My own take on the skepticism expressed in the article is that that science is all about experimentation. If an attempt at cloud seeding was attempted on a much larger scale (say bump up the seeding by a couple of orders of magnitude) using today's technology then the seeding approach could be much more thoroughly tested.

Some people are going to oppose climate engineering because, for reasons that are religious in character, they believe that humans do not have the right to intervene in nature to cause climate scale changes. Others will oppose it out of fear of unintended consequences. However, even if we reject the sort of moral philosophy that views natures as something that should not be tampered with and even if we may some day know enough to be able to predict all major consequences there will still be another argument against climate engineering: any intentional shift in weather that causes changes in one place will cause changes throughout the world. As a consequence of those changes (no matter how large or small) there are bound to be winners and losers throughout the world as well. For instance, a slight increase or decrease in rainfall in other countries will either increase flooding or lead to a reduction of crop yields.

The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale is a 1-5 rating based on the hurricane's present intensity. This is used to give an estimate of the potential property damage and flooding expected along the coast from a hurricane landfall. Wind speed is the determining factor in the scale, as storm surge values are highly dependent on the slope of the continental shelf in the landfall region. Note that all winds are using the U.S. 1-minute average.

U.S. citizens and corporations have donated more than $1.1 billion for tsunami relief, according to the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. The U.S. government has pledged about $950 million.

Clinton said the donations have earned the United States goodwill in Indonesia. He said a State Department survey he received Tuesday showed Osama bin Laden's popularity had fallen from 58 percent to 23 percent in the country since the tsunami.

"There is now a plurality in Indonesia that believes America should lead the war on terror, the first Muslim country to believe that," Clinton said. "When they were asked why, everyone cited because of the way America responded with tsunami relief. They know we had no ulterior motives. They know all these contributions came on a totally human level."

Total activity for the tropical cyclone season was slightly below normal, with three systems occurring within the area of responsibility of the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC). One tropical cyclone (01-C) developed within the central Pacific and the other two, Darby and Estelle, moved into the area from the eastern Pacific. Estelle was the strongest of the three systems and the only one of tropical storm intensity. There were no deaths recorded or property damage reported in the central North Pacific due to these three tropical cyclones.

The MODIS instrument flying aboard NASA's Terra satellite captured this true-color image of Typhoon Meari along the eastern China coast on September 27, 2004 at 02:55 UTC. At the time this image was taken, Meari had maximum sustained winds near 105 knots with gusts to 130 knots. Meari was expected to weaken slightly over the next 24 hours and make a gradual turn to the north.