I Now Look At Hurricanes Differently!

[Dionne]

Glad to see a hard dose of reality can knock some common sense into folks.

Not me, sorry. Charley hit my area (direct hit) and it just sparked my interest in hurricanes. What gets me nervous are the tornadoes imbedded in the hurricanes. Straightline winds/gust, however, I'm fine with. And I live too far inland to worry about flooding.

We rode out Katrina 85 NM north of Ponchartrain. Figured we were far enough inland to take the day off and bbq. Watch the storm on TWC. All the early evacuees were here hanging out with us in Copiah county. Around 11AM our entire infrastructure went down. We became the northern most declared disaster county. The winds ate our lunch. The folks from down south of us that evac'd to our location had to evacuate again. Your the first person I have ever heard say that they were "fine with" straight line winds. Did you know that you can hear the squall lines coming from miles away?

[swampdude]

I grew up as a Hurricane junkie. I was 2 yr. old when Audrey forced our evacuation. Don't remember much there, but have heard hundreds of stories during my life as it came through my home town. ( June marked the 50 year anniversary of Audrey). Hurricane Carla gave me my first direct experience with tropical weather. It was great fun for a 1st grader to miss school and play in the wind and flooded streets. As I got older I read everything I could about hurricanes. I too experienced the adrenaline rush when we "thought" one was coming our way. In the early 80's I went to Galveston the first day they allowed non-residents on the island after Alicia. I was stunned to see the damage and destruction. Landmarks and street signs were gone. Very sobering. Then fast forward to 2005. We spent three weeks helping the victims of Katrina as they poured into Texas only to have Rita run them and us north. We are still heavily affected by Rita. I am very proud of the good people of Southeast Texas and Southwest Louisiana as we have picked ourselves up and gotten back to the business of living. We appreciate many things that were taken for granted before. I too have changed my feelings about getting excited about hurricanes. I still love to learn more and keep an eye out toward the Gulf for any new developments, but hope to have another 2006 season. But we will allow a tropical depression to sit on Florida until their drought ends!