As of the most recent reports, it looks like Hurrican Dennis has a good chance could strike the Gulf Coast of Florida. After dealing with 4 in a period of 2 months last year, I know how bad they suck.
There's the obvious destruction, chance of death, and damage but they are also the most inconvenienant things EVER.... Gas stations sell out of gas and if you want to evacuate you better hope your tank is full, people get scared the power is going to be out forever so they drain ATMS of cash and it's hard to get $$$, you have to board up your home, you have do something with all your valuables, power can be out for weeks, drinking water is affected, I could go on and on.
Excuse me for being extremely self-centered, but I'm taking summer classes and have 2 exams scheduled for next week and Dennis could possibly greatly impair my studying and my performance on finals and ultimatlely my GPA.
While living in Florida is usually paradise, hurricanes are the big exception. If it looks bad and headed directly towards me in Tampa/St. Pete, I will be loading up my car with all my valuables and kitty cats and heading home to Georgia. Evacuating to central Florida isn't even an option because they got hit pretty bad last year and everyone learned their lesson.
So basically, the purpose of this post is to vent, complain, and ask everyone to keep those in the path of Dennis in their thoughts and prayers.
One more thing... right now Dennis is a category 4 storm. The highest storms of rated in terms of size, power, and destrucion is 5 so this is a pretty big one. The paths of these storms can literally change in an hour so they are hard to predict and you never know for sure where they are headed.
I know how you feel on this one. I'm in south LA and some models are still prediciting it to hit us. Last year the evacuation from Ivan was very chaotic to say the least. It was taking people in NO 8 hrs to go 1 hr north to BR! Completely insane. If its headed my way I'm running very fast. I refuse to be around here when that sucker hits!
Sunshine... I'm in law school at Stetson. Our dean is a nut and she's sending tons of emails regarding the storm so she's making me a taddy bit nervous. If this was any other time, I'd handle it better... last year at the beginning of the school year we missed 6 days for Charlie, Frances, and Ivon but none for Jeane which hit where I live (downtown St. Pete) the worst.
You poor things - I have lived in South Louisiana all my life, so this is pretty familiar to me too - I complained about not being driving distance to a beach when I moved to Dallas last year, but this is surely one thing I am not missing. But my family is still all there in the Hammond / Ponchatoula / New Orleans / Baton Rouge area, so I'm still watching worried.....
My stupid ridiculous hurricane story - I think it was Ivan maybe? I was in BR & my mom lives 40 miles south of me. She kept telling me to come home so I wouldn't be alone at my apartment with tons of windows, but I was stubborn. I woke up in the middle of the night & it was sounding really bad & I got scared. So at 3 am I packed up my overnight clothes & headed to my Mom's (again, SOUTH) - basically in the worst weather of the storm we ever got. How stupid. The silliest part was that they had no electricity because it hit them hard enough to screw that up, but my friends at my apartment all had electricity. So the moral of the story is to be smart in your evacuation plan.
My thoughts & prayers are with all you girls...
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Who do you have to probe around here to get a Chardonnay? - Roger the Alien from American Dad
you know, I never really paid much attention to hurricanes, but having been in the South last year right between two of them (Ivan & Jeanne, I think?), they now TERRIFY me. I am sorry you guys have to deal with this!
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"We live in an age where unnecessary things are our only necessities." --Oscar Wilde
I will pray for you guys and hope it misses you. I have a friend who's family is originally from Cuba and they still have family there. He is really frightened for them right now.Last he heard from them they were being evacuated.Please keep them in your prayers.
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To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.- Ralph Waldo Emerson