Hurricane!

Biff had a birthday party to go to today. We dropped him off at the bowling alley, then dragged Cubby with us 40 miles to the east to the town of Arcadia, which is known for its antique shops. We found the main street lined with them on both sides. Arcadia suffered a lot from Hurricane Charley. Many houses have huge holes in the roofs, and small trailers parked in the front yards, where presumably the people live. Robby said it reminded her of West Virginia - never a good sign.

Flashback: The day is is Friday, August 13th (ooh, Friday the 13th, scary!). Everyone is stocking up on water, beer, batteries, and other necessities for the rapidly approaching Hurricane Charley. One thing people seemed to forget to stock up on: condoms.

When Hurricane Isabel tore through Loudoun County in 2003, it wasn’t just sheriff’s deputies and firefighters who put together a response plan. County officials called on a trained corps of citizens to work at emergency shelters and help in the county’s emergency operations center. The civilians were graduates of the Community Emergency Response Team training course, a program established in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to enlist ordinary people to help their neighbors during emergencies.

Hurricane Preparedness Week continues! While storm surges are the greatest source of damage when a hurricane strikes, it is inland flooding that poses the greatest threat to human life. The storm surge, combined with very intense rainfall means there's water, water everywhere without a place to go. The most deadly storm to strike our area was Hurricane Diane in 1955. Arriving just a few days after Hurricane Connie saturated the soil, Diane dumped 10-20 inches of rain inland. Flooding in New York, Pennsylvania, and New England contributed to...

Pensacola's location on the Florida Panhandle makes it vulnerable to hurricanes. Major hurricanes which have made landfall at or near Pensacola include Hurricane Juan (1985), Hurricane Opal (1995), and Hurricane Ivan (2004).

…FEMA paid more than $31 million to nearly 12,600 Miami-Dade residents despite National Weather Service assessments that Hurricane Frances’ impact there was similar to a thunderstorm with no flooding and no deaths.

According to an audit, the Federal Emergency Management Agency gave more than $31 million to thousands of Floridians who may not have qualified for any disaster aid after Hurricane Frances.

During the September floods caused by the remnants of Hurricane Ivan, floodwaters destroyed tea leaves and supplies stored at the warehouse, the lawsuit said. It said the company lost several million dollars because of business interruptions caused by the flood.

Just a reminder, this week is hurricane preparedness week! Yesterday's topic was hurricane history, today it is the deadly storm surge (don't miss the nifty animation).

Emergency workers in Florida are kicking off Hurricane Preparedness Week today. A state division of emergency management spokesman says this year’s training includes the unique situation of dealing with two storms, simultaneously. Mike Stone says a storm that they’ll call “Hurricane Zack” will be coming ashore as emergency workers recover from “Hurricane Ursula.” Stone says the drill will give workers experience handling a recovery operation and an emergency response operation at the same time.

LOL...this, 9 months to the day that Hurricane Charley hit Pt Charlotte!

The area where I live in gets flooded when it rains hard. And we found it out the hard way. The tail ends of hurricane Frances hit us two Wednesdays ago. My fiance and I were caught unaware. We woke up seeing our car submerged in water and there was nothing we could do about it. It was already too late. We had to wait for two days before everything dried out. Nothing "really" bad happened to the car. Thank goodness.

At first glance then terrorism may be seen as a very real, very significant problem. But by comparison in 2004 alone there were 16503 homicides in the US (and about 31000 gun-related deaths) and the four hurricanes which hit Florida last year caused tens of billions worth of damage - Hurricane Charley did $15 billion alone.

Churchgoers must step around the steeple that still sits in front of First Baptist Church of Cocoa Beach, months after it was ripped down by Hurricane Frances.

Kathy Gudwien and her brother Mike Sadlowski, a disabled Vietnam veteran, know what it's like to be homeless after Hurricane Jeanne destroyed their Lake Wales apartment complex. They slept in their car one night and then spent three weeks in a motel before landing in what some might consider a luxury temporary housing: a vacation condominium at the Grenelefe Resort.

June 1st, only three weeks away, marks the beginning of hurricane season. To get ready next week is National Hurricane Preparedness Week. The National Hurricane Center is going to kick-off the week with hurricane history lessons. That will be followed by discussions of hurricane hazards, hurricane forecasting and how to prepare yourselves in the event of a hurricane.

The Orlando Sentinel has a story recounting Marineland's tale of woe. Once the pride of the Florida Marine Animal Attractions, the park has suffered for the last few decades. Finally, Hurricane Frances dealt it a death blow. Or so it seems. Now new investors are hoping to turn the park around and make it a unique experience for the guests.

Each year from June through November, Americans living on the Eastern seaboard and along the Gulf of Mexico face an increased threat of hurricanes. These powerful storms can create severe flooding, cause power outages, and damage homes and businesses with their high winds, tornadoes, storm surges, and heavy rainfall. The effects of these storms can be devastating to families and cause lasting economic distress. During National Hurricane Preparedness Week, we call attention to the importance of planning ahead and securing our homes and property in advance of storms.

The stump didn't move for a week. I dug. I chopped roots. I filled the trench around it with water. I made a hole so deep I could stand in it up to my thighs. It didn't move. The stump of the Bradford Pear toppled by hurricane Isabel seemed determined to outlast me. When the storm broke the tree in half I had actually thought through how I would get rid of the stump. Instead of chain sawing it off at the ground I'd left a good three feet of trunk to use as leverage. The piles of debris were all gone before I even thought about working on...

A special Hurricane Hunter aircraft that's traveling along the East Coast to talk about hurricane preparedness made a special landing in Virginia.

The P-3 Orion landed yesterday at Richmond International Airport.

The aircraft flies through hurricanes and collects data to keep hurricane forecasters and the public up-to-date.

You can blame it on Hurricane Francis' arrival in Brevard County last September. Or blame it on Hurricane Jeanne the same month.

But if the past predicts the future, a baby boom in Brevard is on the horizon. In fact, these pregnant women can attest to it.

"I consider this my hurricane baby," said Suzanne Fox Sevel of West Melbourne. "My mom wanted me to name him Francis, but we haven't chosen a name yet."

No ferry service has run across the mouth of Mobile Bay since Sept. 16, when Hurricane Ivan destroyed the dock on the Fort Morgan side.

Hurricane Charley certainly wreaked havoc on Southwest Florida, however the early warnings, the incredible emergency team response, and the best neighbors in the United States have made it look like we just had a little thunderstorm. Residents were prepared.

Hunker Down.

You hear that phrase on the news all the time when a big storm comes to town. It's not just from this year. I've heard it for years, but it seems to get more popular with every passing year. So just what does it mean?

People use it in conversation without a real knowledge of its definition. I was in a meeting at work when it came up again. We discussed the impending visit of Hurricane Ivan and someone said it was time for us all to hunker down again. The woman on my right looked exasperated and said she was tired of hunkering down. I told her that maybe she's not doing it right.

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson today prayed on his Christian Broadcasting Network, based here, that Hurricane Isabel would turn from the coast. He asked God to put a "wall of protection'' around Virginia Beach and the East Coast.

I was thrilled just to see our small group of pileated woodpeckers had returned this past weekend. They hung around all last year, eating carpenter ants out of the many blacklocust trees broken by Hurricane Isabel the previous autumn, but I had not seen them all winter.