experience a hurricane

We stayed for Ike not wanting to evacuate. The winds is what made me never want to go through another hurricane.

A few years ago, my family went through Hurricane Rita, and last week Hurricane Ike hit us.

I woke up at 5 in the morning to the sound of the wind howling and thunder rattling the windows, and it continued throughout the whole morning. I nearly jumped out of my skin when one crack of thunder literally shook the house and dropped off awkwardly instead of fading away like thunder normally does.

Then I noticed that the roof in the bedroom next to mine had caved in and torrents of rainwater were flooding into the room, forming a puddle in the carpet.

It wasn’t thunder. It was a tree that had fallen on the house.

After we situated some buckets under the streams of water, I went back into my room, only to be pelted with even more water. I looked up and saw a long crack had formed in my roof, too.

I evacuated my laptop, enveloped myself in a blanket, and went to camp out on the stairway.

Just destroyed Baton Rouge. :(

Fay was my first,
and you never forget your first ;-)

I am a thrill seeker and really enjoyed riding out a few hurricanes, but the damage and devistation you get to see when it is done really stinks, especially when you and everyone else in the area are without electricity, clean water, gas or food for a week or two. It tends to get really hot and humid the first clear day after the storm!

They are really dangerous too! even if you are away from the coast , away from surge, you can still get flooded or hit by one of the several tornadoes that are whirling through the storm.I was in Polk, co FL when Charley hit…. disaster. a real hell on Earth.

I used to think hurricanes were fun. We got to get off of school, sometimes we threw parties, if the power went out we grilled on the barbeque and played board games in the heat. It was a bit of an adrenaline rush to watch it coming towards you on the news, or to go outside and feel the wind gusts as the outer rain bands passed over.

What i realize now is that i’d never experienced a hurricane. I just thought i had.

I got four feet of floodwater in hurricane Katrina. My mother’s house got 6. We didn’t know if some family members who stayed were alive or dead for almost a week because no cell phones would work. All the towers had been blown down. Thankfully everyone was ok, despite some close calls. When we came back to clean up, we stayed in a crowded, hot, storm-damaged house in Louisiana’s August heat, which is pretty much like walking around in a giant sauna. There was no power for almost a month and it would have been stupid to drink the water. When we took showers it caused sewage to bubble up in a neighboring street.

My mother’s house had three inches of the smelliest lakebottom mud on the floor, which we had to scoop out with shovels before we could rip out the carpet and walls. We later learned that there was benzene and sewage in the mud, and it didn’t matter b/c you couldn’t help getting it on you. Carrying out a fridge, dripping and filled with week-old flooded food and broken dishes or carting everything you own to a garbage pile is an experience i wouldn’t wish on anyone.

I can’t really say if this is “worth doing” or not, since obviously hurricanes suck, but you just make the best of it and muddle through.

I’ve experienced numerous tropical storms and hurricanes having spent most of my childhood in Florida and then having gone back to college there. What sticks out most to me is Tropical Storm Diana in 1984, Hurricane Elena in 1985, and the remnants of both Hurricanes Florence and Gilbert crashing together on us in 1988, causing torrential downpours and our school bus to get stuck in the mud on the way home for several hours. I also recall standing outside in the midst of a calm portion of the downgraded Tropical Storm Opal in 1996 (hey, we were stupid college kids).

However, the hurricane that caused the most potential damage to me personally was one that I didn’t even experience first-hand. The only time a hurricane hit anywhere near Richmond, VA in ages was Hurricane Gaston in 2004, and this was less than ONE WEEK prior to my wedding, which was scheduled for downtown Richmond! Fortunately the venue was well-prepared and also on somewhat higher ground, and we were still able to proceed.

Many people were without hot water and power and for days and some more than a week. My family was lucky because where we lived we got power back quickly. I remember my friends coming to school half showered b/c of having no hot water etc. Not something I would want to go through again.

NOT in Kansas!

it was amazing, and we had our power back after like 1 day since we’re in the same grid as the hospital. we lost our pool cage though we had to get a new one.