On Tropical Storms

I know everybody who doesn't live in Florida hates to hear it but you really do ignore anything under a category 2 hurricane if you live down there. You learn that anything less than that is basically the same as a bad thunderstorm anywhere else in the country. Sometimes you get a nasty little surprise though.

One time when I lived in West Palm we were hit by the same storm 3 times. It blew in from the Atlantic, went straight across Florida to the Gulf and promptly turned back around and came back across West Palm again. Then the storm went up to Jacksonville and turned around and decided to visit West Palm for the 3rd. and thankfully last time.

The water was so deep in my front yard that the neighborhood kids were surfing in it. (you know how it is when you are a kid, you can find the fun in anything!) On the 10th. day of rain I looked out and I saw my 6 week old greyhound puppies playing and swimming through the yard. I ran out and put their doghouse up on the sidewalk (the highest point in my yard) but they kept jumping off the sidewalk into the water. They were having a such a blast that I finally gave up trying to stop them because they were obviously having too much fun. Another fraction of an inch the water would have been in my house and I and my animals would have had to evacuate.

Anyway we made it through that and many other storms (including Andrew). I was so thankful after Andrew that we weren't 90 miles away in Miami. It looked like a 3rd. world country. The only problems that I had with Hurricane Andrew were my animals were extremely upset when it blew in(the only storm that they ever paid attention to) and I had a can of biscuits explode in my refrigerator!When I went to get up the next morning after the storm was over to check out the damage, it turns out that I couldn't raise my head up off the bed. The drop in pressure is hell on your sinuses it turns out!

The night before Andrew I was out looking at the sky and I was fascinated to see that the clouds were blowing in in a giant pinwheel shape. It was pretty neat to see - if I had only known what it meant. I didn't evacuate because I was sure that someone was going to wreck in that long line of cars and I didn't want to be stuck on the interstate in a storm. That was probably the wrong decision but I decided I WOULD evacuate the next time because all the cars they showed after the storm were still whole. They may have been in the top of a tree but they were still whole cars while the houses were just matchsticks!