I don't even know..........

No dice on the picture. Not showing up for me.

EDIT: Nevermind. Showing up now.

Wow... that tree got the spanking of its lifetime.

Well, it didn't fall on your house, so that's something to be thankful about, at least.

I'm scared in regards to how poetic that was.

You're not the only one.

You missed a great opportunity to make a great baseball bat.

Hilarious.

Ohh damn!

Holy shit.... damn it's been a bad year for hurricanes. My sympathies to all Chewers who have been afflicted by them.

I lost a nice shade tree next to my rear deck in the storm before this last one. Still waiting on a friend to loan me his chainsaw so we can chop it up and move it.

Nah, suburbs northeast of Atlanta. All we got were the dregs of the hurricanes, but it was still enough to down power lines and trees and whatnot.

Thanks for the offer though. Try to stay safe down there.

I caught two of the three Orlando hurricanes this year.

Charley was the nut-punch. It caught everyone with their dicks hanging out and did most of the damage. If you drive through Orlando and see a downed tree, odds are 2 to 1 it was done in by Charley.

Frances was pretty much nothing. At least for me. Other areas got hit hard, but most of the large bands passed south or north of Orlando. A boring, unimpressive weekend.

Jeanne hit that sweet spot of not being TOO dangerous, but just dangerous enough that there was good reason to stay inside. I mean, if you're going to be cooped up for two whole days, you want a good reason. It was fun to go out and stand in and lean into the wind (and I didn't even get decapitated!)

Personally, I'm kind of trying to enjoy-joy it since so many storms in such a short period of time occurs only once a few generations, but that's because I haven't been affected by it that much.

I'd probably appreciate the oddity less if my car had been blown away.

Forcasters are saying that, based on this year's activity and historical patterns, they're expecting three named storms in October.

I live in Pensacola, which went directly under the eastern eyewall of Cat 4 Ivan (for those who don't live in Hurricane territory, that translates into really bad shit). We lost one of our two 40-year-old magnolia trees, had some moderate damage to the roof, and lived without power for 8 days... and we were very lucky. Some homes in my neighborhood have 50-foot pines in their dining rooms. Other people I know were in their home when seven-foot storm surge came through (they had the kids on shelves in the kitchen cupboards, to keep them above the water. The adults were standing on tables. And this is on the mainland, NOT the barrier islands). The whole damn city was shredded.

Interstate 10 is missing a mile-long bridge over Escambia Bay. Other major thoroughfares are closed for repairs, meaning people living in the suburbs face two or three extra hours of travel to drive the twenty miles into town. Virtually every business in town was closed for a whole week, waiting for power, and a somewhere around 25% of stores are closed indefinitely for repairs. My local Best Buy lost most of their roof, and therefore most of the merchandise inside. Thousands of people are without work. The local Navy base (which was directly in the line of fire of the eyewall) sustained hundreds of millions of dollars in damage, and will take years to repair. 28 of the 72 public schools in Escambia County sustained moderate damage (water damage in rooms, missing air handlers) to catastrophic damage (missing all the roofs over the hallways, walls caved in, catastrophic structural damage). Schools won't open until October 11, meaning kids will have missed four weeks of school.

It was a bad couple weeks.

What pissed me off more than anything is that Charley AND Ivan, both Cat 4's, slammed a direct hit into BOTH my former primary vacation spots!

My grandparents used to live on Perdido Key right near the state line, RIGHT where Ivan came in.

I used to vacation all the time at Boca Grande (see vacation thread pictures) at the mouth of Charlotte Harbor, RIGHT where Charley came in.

What the fuck? Is this God's way of telling me that anything I enjoy will inevitably be fucked over in the end?



EDIT: To give you an idea as to how badly God hates my vacation spots, here are before an after pics of Banyan street in Boca Grande.

BEFORE


After (taken from same end of street at virtually the same angle)

A friend of mine has lost power for almost a week every single storm that's hit Orlando. She's about ready to go back to coal.