Back when I was a kid, we all went to the Smith’s house when a hurricane came through South Georgia. It rained hard, the wind blew, but the adults wouldn’t let us look out of the windows at all. The lights flickered and did not go out. It was boring.
A hurricane came through Valdosta Georgia back in 1985 or 86, and because I was renting an apartment I didn’t care. I walked to the store to get some beer and realized drinking while being outside wasn’t a good idea, and for that matter, being outside was a bad idea. It was fun, kinda, to lean into the wind like I could.
I was sent to Mississippi in 2005, on the heels of Katrina, and that was life altering. I got there right after the power came on, and the people who owned motels and hotels reserved some rooms for people doing damage assessments so I never slept on a floor or in my truck. I met people who had lost everything, with no way of finding out if their families had survived, or if everyone else was dead. I went to a place where the smell of death filled the air.
Michael just missed us in 2018, but hammered my sister’s place and hometown of Blakely, Georgia. Then in 2023, Idalia hit and flooded my property, which killed many trees. In an odd way, I think that hurricane helped convince Aqaba that living inside was better than not. But by last year, when Helene hammered us, Aqaba was an inside cat.
Helene was the first, and the last, major hurricane I rode out. I had plans to evacuate, rented rooms, had a place to board the animals, and everything was set. Helene’s predicted track shifted west, I cancelled reservations, then she moved back to the east, hard. It was too late to find a place to run.
The storm passed directly over my house at about one in the morning. For about four hours all I could hear was wind and rain. At one point, it was so dark I started hallucinating colors. The wind rode in through the woods like waves at the beach, getting louder and louder, then receding, with the crack of murdered trees punctuating the sounds. I lay in bed, fully clothed with my shoes on, waiting for the roof to go, or for a tree to come down on the house.
At one point I was pretty sure I had made a serious mistake in judgement (I had) and was going to pay for it (I didn’t) but once the wind speed hit one hundred thirty eight there was nothing to do but lie there and wait. T’was a long night.
Right now, Erin is still in the Atlantic, heading north with two other systems cranking up. I enter the teeth of the 2025 Hurricane Season having rode out a high CAT 3 Hurricane. I will not do that again. Ever.
Whatever comes out of the ocean this year, I am running from it.
Take Care,
Mike
We were right in the eye of Michael, in the tri-state area. Was not a pleasant experience and hope I never have to go through another.
Emmette,
I met some people who evacuated a week before Michael hit. They got a room in a nice hotel, had plenty of time to relax before the traffic got weird, but I don’t have that sort of money.
I may find that sort of money, to keep from riding another one out.
I used to live in the Hampton, VA area, and we didn’t blink at anything under a Cat 4. We had hurricane parties. Floyd was my wakeup call. We’re now further inland, so we typically only see tropical storms by the time they get to us, with the occasional weak Cat 1 — but we get the tornadoes that spawn and we can have lots of flooding nearby. Unfortunately, warmer seas feed stronger storms, so I expect things will continue to get worse because humans continue to trash natural resources and forget that nature fights back to preserve itself.
Rockalilly, I wonder if we’ll have to lose a major city before people understand we’re the problem.
They still won’t.
The story of Noah was in the Bible and written thousands of years ago. The point being that while Noah was building the ark the rest were making fun of him and calling him a fool right up to when the water was up to their eyebrows and then couldn’t talk anymore. Besides burble,burble, gurgle.
Whoever wrote the bible understood human nature.
Now it’s the ones that fear it might cost them money who push climate change denialism. Live for today because tomorrow never comes.
Buzz, I would like to think there is a tipping point. I keep thinking that and it keeps not happening, but at the same time, if there is not, we’re all going to die.
Here in NE Illinois, hurricanes here are just bad thunderstorms as they are on their last legs.
I thought it would be neat to sit through a hurricane. Then when we were in Taiwan, a typhon hit–but by the time it got to us, it was a tropical depression (it made landfall on the east side of the island and we were on the west side). The amount of rain was insane. Just going from one facade to another that were about 2 feet apart would soak us almost to the bone.
Now I longer want to sit through a hurricane.
This reminds me of a song that states “everyone wants to live where the hurricane blows except when the hurricane blows.”
Tim, a lot of things occurred to me as I waited for the roof to come off. One of thoughts that kept coming back to me was I didn’t have to be there at all, I could have left early, and I wouldn’t be waiting to die.
Yeah, I’m running this season. I’ll post from a cozy room with a gentle rain hitting the window.
Makes sense to me–get out before the hurricane arrives.
And as you mentioned, get out in time to take the pets–and your Mom (I think she is still there with you).
Yep, Tim, Mom and Mutts and a little cat, too. Everyone goes with us.
I was living in Valdosta (Moody AFB) at the time of that hurricane in 1985 – but we were deployed to Denmark for most of that month – came back and my car had been flooded and washed halfway across the parking lot. fun times! – fortunately my dorm was on the 2nd floor so no damage there…
Keith, water is one of those fun things until it isn’t. I’ve seen people do stupid, stupid things, when it comes to water. Three guys in Cairo Georgia decided to drive through water in their pick up and the water was like, “Absolutely Not!” They had to be airlifted out of a tree they had climb up on, and after it was over they got to split a 30K bill for the rescue.
been inside typhoons (in the philippines) and hurricanes (in Florida); a tornado passed about 100 yards from me one night at almost midnight (peachtree corners/Norcross GA); went through several earthquakes (A big one in LA in 1994 and a bunch of smaller ones in the Philippines and Japan) found out that i had been living on a volcano when it erupted (in the 2nd largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century); that eruption was about a month after i moved back the states. the house I had been living in was washed away in a ‘lahar flow’ (basically a mudslide of mostly volcanic ash) – the entire street I had lived on is gone. I don’t recommend any of these things… I also somehow managed to drive through a blizzard in the panhandle of Texas one day; it took close to 11 hours to get from Albuquerque to Oklahoma City on I-40 – there were hundreds of trucks and cars blown by the high winds off the sides of the interstate/many on their sides and I heard on the news that there was a ~300 car pile-up in Amarillo TX which I had just passed through 20 minutes earlier. – somehow this idiot from Georgia that hardly ever has snow managed to stay on the road… snow storm ended almost as soon as we crossed into Oklahoma and the rest of the drive back to Atlanta was smooth sailing. (in my defense I was way too stupid to check the weather forecast before leaving Vegas)
1985, Fort AP Hill Virginia.
Me and about 8,000 boy scouts in canvas tents hunkered down as Bob made it up the coast. Our tent was one of few still standing because we lowered the poles and tucked the sides underneath all of our gear. What a way to spend my birthday!
Mike, you walked away from it. It’s a win.
then we got treated to a Beach Boys concert