Your tropical storm/hurricane experiences

[Brent]

Those that have been experienced tropical storm/hurricanes, tell about your experience, whether you were living in the path or you went to see the storm for the heck of it, LOL

I've really only been through one storm that was still officially named when it came by. Opal in 1995. We were in Eastern Alabama and the storm roared through a few hours after hitting Pensacola. We were on the east side of the hurricane and had gusts well over hurricane force for a while. At my grandparent's house(where we were), we sat in the car under the carport. It was safer than in the house. We went out there about midnight after a tree almost fell onto the house. I just remember sitting in the car looking out the back window and seeing HUGE pine trees sway back and forth. I was only 7 at the time, so it scared the crap out of me. We sat out there til about 3am when conditions had improved a bit. The storm was moving very quickly, thus the shortened amount of time with the worst affects. We slept in the hall for about 3 hours, heard what sounded like a tornado about 30 minutes after going in, it sounded like a freight train. The next morning about 6:30am, I remember running across the yard. There were trees and powerlines EVERYWHERE. My grandpa lost 10 to 15 trees in his backyard. Front yard was relatively unscathed. At the end of his street, powerlines were crossing the road. After a few hours of cleaning up, we went back to my house and found there to be less damage there. We did lose a tree in the front yard, and it just barely missed the house, but other than that, nothing severe. Just some limbs and a LOT of water. The power either didn't go out or was back on by the time we got back, because we watched movies that afternoon. We ended up getting a 5-day weekend from school(LOL), The storm hit on a Wednesday Night. We had Thursday, Friday, the weekend and Monday(Holiday) off.

[Guest]

Well I've been through a few events,most notable were Andrew & Irene.

The One that got me hooked on hurricanes was David which brushed my area 1 month before I turned 9 years old,I remember people getting ready for it & my dad took me to get plywood & tape LOL for the windows.I didn't quite understand completely what was happening but I knew something wild was about to happen,later on that night I heard some pretty good wind gusts but that was bout it.

Going through Andrew was a unforgettable experience for me even though I was about 20 miles north of the most destructive part, it was impressive none the less..I remember how it went from breezy to windy to probably hurricane force gusts in about a 1/2 hour span & the wind kept going up from there.When the strong winds did arrive the 1st thing I heard were the sounds of tree limbs breaking & crashing down with a thunderous force & the lights flickered on & off for while before finally going out permanently.
The house seemed to vibrate with every wind gust & I felt like with anyone of those gust something was going to come flying through a window but there I was anyway still looking out those windows because those windows had the best view.

Transformers exploding with that erie greenish glow,the sound of things crashing,our aluminum carport took a serious beating,I stepped outside briefly & all you can smell was the smell of destroyed foliage,it was a freakish storm even where I was,for those people to the south of me it really must have been hell on Earth.

Georges caused some good winds for a while & stirred up Biscayne Bay pretty good & Irene was a impressive wet,very windy storm.

Lets see what the future brings...

[*StOrmsPr*]

I went trough Hugo 1989, Hortense 1996, Georges 1998, Dean 2001.

With Hugo i was 9, i remember almost 3 months without electricity, like 2 months without watter, lots of trees down, almost 4 feet worth of leaves in the balcony LOL, no school for 2 weeks, my uncle lost his house . everything started after 5pm i remember because i was watching the news at 5 when the wind started hauling , remember my grandma crying really hard after the huge noise my uncle house made when exploding.

In Hortense was a very very different story, with out light for 3 days, and almost lost my house in big big mudslide , i think a little bit more rain and my house would have gone all the way down hill . we barely felt high winds here maybe storm force late in night, it was all rain rain and much much more rain.


In Georges, well he won the first price LOL, i was in my first semester of college at UPRH. My sister lost her house, my uncle lost his house again,
the high wind started like at 2 pm or so and my mom and i spend like 2 hours watching in the balcony then like at 4 went inside because it was really nasty outside. then at 6:30 or something like that we experienced the eye for almost 1 hour and just at the same second i closed the door after looking out the worse part came in ( here we called it La virazon) so i was so nervous, so i spent the rest of the night watching my mom sleep and waiting, then like at 8 am went out to check it out everything!

With Dean i remember finding out in S2K about it, nothing special , just 8 inches of rain fell in just 4 hours here at my rain collector, i remember it because i really love the rain ( don't know why, just love watching it fall)



Still remember all the storys my grandma used to tell me about her experiences with canes and storms! ( San Hipolito 1916, San Pedro 1921, San Liborio 1926,Sab Felipe 2 1928, San Nicolas 1931, San Cipriano 1932, San Calixto 1943, Santa Clara (Betsy) 1956, Claudette, David and Frederic in 1979, and Hugo 1989 )


And last I will never forget the preparations for Luis, Marilyn in 1995, Bertha in 1996 and Lenny in 1999 ( thank God They didn't came to visit) with the exception of Marilyn the spared Vieques and Culebra (2 small island between PR and US Virgin Islands)

Side Note : my english is not perfect so sorry for any mistake LOL. all corrections all welcome!

[FWBHurricane]

Brent..I was in Opal as well. I didnt really even think about it since a few days before it hit, it was heading towards Mississippi. But when I woke up on October 5th, the water had already reached a foot in the den. My whole backyard was covered in water. I live in Fort Walton Beach mind you, i was in Paquito Bayou during Opal ( Subdivision in FWB ) I decided to leave since the water was rising rapidly. We evacuated to the Fort Walton industrial park where my dad had his office. It wasnt as bad there, it only seemed like a thunderstorm. We lost power right when Opal made landfall, about 6:00 P.M. Soon it got worse, trees were snapping and the roof off the next buidling was being ripped apart. We soon found out that the large, 30 foot tall metal sattelite dish on the top out our building, was blown down and it crashed onto the metal fece, slicing the fence in two. Thats what caused the power to go out. When we woke up, we were listening to the radio hearing reports of about Destin and Downtown Fort Walton was practically leveled. The Police wanted us to stay put because the roads werent safe and Paquito Bayou was said to be under water. We stayed at my dads office overnight and finally we were allowed to go back to our house. Most of the water had receided by the time we got home. We found out we still had a roof, but over 9 feet of standing water was found inside the house. We lost everything. My dad's corvet was totalled, flooded in over 3 foot deep water. The gas grill had been picked up and literally thrown into the sliding glass window in the kitchen. We had no dock ofter Opal either...it was totally washed away. In total the costs were up to $170,000 dollars! But we rebuilt taller and stronger and allitel ways away from the coast.

[NC George]

I live in Eastern NC, and we've had a few hurricanes in the past 7 or so years. The eye of Bertha passed directly over my house (south of Greenville, NC.) It was a good first hurricane, I suppose. The wind howled, peaking out right around hurricane force, the rain/mist blew sideways first one way, then the other after the eye passed. No major damage occurred to my general vicinity, although one giant old tree on my road toppled the power lines, they were fixed the next day. My yard was covered completely in tree leaves, branches, etc.

The eye of Fran passed to the west of me, so it was worse than Bertha (I was in the eyewall longer, with no break.) The wind howled longer, and generally in the same direction. A bunch of power lines went down in the area, and I was without power for around a week. Fortunately for me, a friend who lost power longer than me during Bertha bought a generator, so I borrowed it until mine was restored.

Bonnie wan't really memorable, most of the weak tree limbs were already down from the storm of the prior 2 years. Dennis was memorable only for the constant rain.

Floyd was a pain. I barely made it home from work (the worst of the rain here was hours before actual landfall, and I live 80 miles inland. I drove my giant 4x4 truck to work, and had to drive through water as deep as my 35" tires to get home, including across a flooded bridge. It was stupid. I won't do it again.) When I arrived home the water was getting readly to flood into one of my better cars, and was over the porch steps. I got the car out of there, and then moved the big truck to higher ground as well. The water rose to within 1 inch of flooding my house, I put some things in the attic, grabbed the cats and went to a neighbors house. I rode out the storm there (mostly wind,) and went to bed at dawn. When I awoke, the water was down, and I could get to my house, where everything was OK inside the house, but everything outside (like about 10 cars, lawnmower, washer/dryer) was ruined. We only lost power for a couple of hours during the worst of the storm. Greenville, where I work at Domino's, had not yet begun to recieve the water that had nearly flooded my house the night before. When it did, it rose to record proportions over the next week.

Funniest moment: a group of National Gaurdsmen arrived at our store at around 11 pm at night. They asked where the local armory was, as they had been ordered to report there ASAP. I looked at the other employee present, and said, "You can't get there from here." Which was essentially true. The armory was on the other side of the Tar River, now 20 or so feet over flood stage and rising. No bridges passable east of Raliegh, approx 80 miles west, and you basically had to drive around the entire watershed of the river to get around the flooding. The guy in charge looked at his orders and there were 2 days old. His unit was from Kinston (also isolated by flooding, and it had taken them all day just to get to their present location, which is normally a 30 minute drive.) They called HQ, and were ordered back to Kinston.

We had some storm last year (that's how many we've had recently, I can't even remember the name and there were none at all the first 14 years I lived here, although we did have a tornado that killed one of my 9th grade teachers,) and a tree fell on one of my trucks, but all in all it wasn't really that bad at all. I've definitely had my fill of them for now.

[cajungal]

Let's see. I live 60 miles southwest of New Orleans and we had brushes and dodges with a few. We got brushed with Allison and got major rain. I was up all night because the rain would not let up. The neighbors started sandbagging and almost got water in their house. The neighborhood across from us got 4 feet of water in their homes. Many lost all their belongings.

Then, we dodged a major bullet with Lili 2 years ago. We just got some rain, gusty winds, and lost power for about a minute. It passed far enough to our west that we only got brushed. We did get a hit with Isidore. But, that was mostly just a rain event. But, we did lose power for several hours. We got Bill last June. But, that was only a rain event.

The experience that sticks out in my mind the most and I will never forget is Andrew. I was just turning 16 and was a junior in high school. At first, it was coming straight for us and the eye was supposed to pass directly over us. I was so scared because I seen the damage in South Florida and thought that was going to be us. The eye in the ended up passing 25 miles to our west instead. But, we still got a major punch from it. I remember the radio saying that we were getting winds up to 100 mph. The winds were so loud that night. All the pine trees in our backyard were bending all the way to the ground. Our house was completly boarded, but we felt enourmous pressure. My bedroom curtain was being sucked all the way in with no let up. My dad slept on the living room couch during almost the whole hurricane. I slept in a sleeping bag in the hall. I was too scared to sleep in my bedroom. But, I did not hardly sleep at all. The wind was so loud and I was so scared. My Yorkshire Terrier was just a 7-month old puppy at the time. She probably did not what to think. She was shaking. I did not think the night would ever end. We lost power right away as soon as the first feederband came through. We did not get power until 8 days later. 2 telephone poles were cracked in half about a mile from my house. I was amazed that we did not get major damage. Just lost a few shingles from the roof. And tree branches and signs knocked down.

The most bazarre experience happened after the hurricane. We stopped at Sears to get a generator. We were miserable being almost a week without any power and sweltering in the August heat with no air conditioning. We also took my dog for the ride since we did not want to leave her in the hot house. The truck took a wrong turn coming from Houston and got lost. My dad did not want to lose his place in line for the generator and neither did a lot of other families. So, we ended up sleeping in Sears. My mom, dad, my brother, myself and my dog! They were nice enough to let my dog in the store with us! At least 10 other familes did the same thing. And they also brought their pets! The staff ordered pizza for us for supper and doughnuts in the morning for our breakfast. We slept on the floor. We got there at about 3 in the afternoon and did not leave until around 9 the next morning.
The ironic thing is that the power was restored the next day. So, we only got to use the generator for a few hours and since we never got a major hit since then, it has not been used since. And Sears is now my place of employment. Go figure!

I can't stop wondering what the 2004 season will bring. I heard that the Houma-Grand Isle Louisiana area this year is at high risk. I keep having this strong feeling that we will be hit very soon. I feel this year after year, but we keep dodging the bullet. And my experience with Andrew was nothing compared to what my parents went through in 1965 with Hurricane Betsy. They got the eyewall. Winds up to 150 mph and lost power and phone service for 3 weeks. I seen the pictures and towns up to 50 miles inland were almost destroyed. Any comments about Louisiana and the 2004 season?

[msbee]

Let's see
David and Frederick in 1979
tropical storm Klaus 1984
Hugo in 1989
Luis and Marilyn in 1995
Bertha 1996
Georges 1998
Jose and Lenny 1999
none since then, thank God
each one was different
some were rain events..some were wind events. soem were both.
the one that caused catastrophic damage was Luis.... no one on the island will forget that storm.
after Luis, we can live through a CAT 1 or 2 anytime.

[Josephine96]

I have only been through 1 direct hit from a hurricane. {that I can recall anyway} lol..

But I have been through numerous tropical storms. Plus I have seen lesser versions of monster storms.

My favorite has to be the 1 that gave me my S2K name. Tropical Storm Josephine in 1996.

Early 1 morning.. Josephine was getting ready to make landfall just a few miles north of here up around Cedar Key I believe maybe even a tad bit further south.

Josephine was big for a TS. It was shortly before 7am. I was a 7th grader at the time and was riding my bike to school.

When I left the house.. I was only dealing with wind, no feeder bands yet. But just a few minutes later, some VERY strong winds impacted me on my bike. nearly blowing me off it. {I estimate they were in the 50's or almost 60mph.}

I had stopped at a local newspaper rack to pick up the days paper because I needed 1 for class. When I got to school.. Just as I entered school property.. the rains came. They were fierce and hard. I was soaked. You could feel the strong winds blowing on you too.

Every 1 of my teachers actually thought I should go right back home because I'd probably be sick by sitting at school all day with soaked clothes.

I stayed at school.. luckily did not get sick. That was definitely a fun storm to be out in the middle of.

[Aslkahuna]

I've been through so many-mainly in the Philippines where I lived for 8 years, I can't possibly remember them all but I have been in the eyes of four typhoons. However, and this may surprise some, I've seen three decent Tropical Storm hits here in SE AZ from former EPAC hurricanes. The first was Newton in 1986 which brought wind gusts to 64mph locally as the center passed over Douglas. Raymond in 1989 brought heavy rains and winds to 60mph. But the champ was Lester in 1992. Lester recurved and accelerated across Baja and NW Mexico and thus retained more intensity than is usual for a storm following such a track. We knew the Friday before the hit that we were in for heavy rains and high winds the following Sunday disagreeing with NWS's PHX office that the storm would not have an identifiable circulation when it entered AZ. Clouds began building up Saturday August 22 and early Sunday morning we had thunderstorms with the first pre storm squalline. A second outer band of thunderstorms came in around 1pm. No tornadoes were observed with this band though they could have occurred. Moderate to heavy rain began around 4pm and the winds began to increase. By 9pm SE winds gusting to 40-50mph were slamming the rain against the house. Around 10pm on the evening of August 23rd (about 4 hours before Andrew hit FL), Lester became the first named storm of 1992 to hit the lower 48 as it entered AZ just east of Nogales. The weather maps thus featured the unusual circumstance of Tropical systems at either end of the Country. Lester passed 20 NW of Sierra Vista around 10:30pm and the winds picked up rapidly as they shifted to the SW and the rain decreased in intensity. The rest of night was-as Snoopy says, a Dark and Stormy night as hurricane force wind gusts lashed the area. Later, it was time to go to work even though the power was out. With only a small generator to power some of the equipment at the weather station, we worked with a skeleton staff advising the Post that despite the forecast from PHX that the worst was over and that they could begin restoring power and bring the Post back to operational status. Trees were down all over the Valley and there was significant structural damage both on and off Post. We lost a 32 meter instrumented tower and two of our mesonet sites were down but not destroyed. Damage was in the millions. At home, my nectarine tree was so severely damage it was to be three years before I got another crop from it. Although I sent a post storm report to our HQ once we got the data retrieved from the data loggers in the mesonet, it was never sent to NHC consequently the best track data never reflected the true intensity of Lester as it passed SV.
MSLP: 996.3mb
Peak Sustained Wind (Valley Location) 15 minute Average: 48mph
(that equates to a one minute average of 60mph or 52kt)
Peak Gust (Valley Location): 78mph Mountain Location: 85mph
At the house, I noted sustained winds of 45-55mph and also had a peak
observed gust of 78mph (I had no gust recorder at the time). The valley location recording the peak sustained winds was located well away from the mountains and thus had no Canyon effect. Based on all this, the actual intensity of Lester at 06Z 24 Aug 92 was mostly likely 997mb/40-45kt rather than the best track intensity of 999mb/35kt based upon the Tucson observation.

Steve

[vacanechaser]

I think I will list the storms first.. I will post a history of those later.. Don't worry,, nothing to exstinsive... lol..

my first brush that i remember would start in 1984

Pre Hirt Memeber.. Non-chase years..

Hurricane Diana , 1984
Hurricane Gloria , 1985
Hurricane Charley, 1986
Hurricane Bob, 1991
Tropical Storm Danielle, 1992
Hurricane Emily, 1993
Hurricane Felix, 1995 .. Still waiting for him to make landfall lol...
Tropical Storm Arthur, 1996
Hurricane Berta, 1996
Hurricane Fran, 1996
Tropical Storm Danny, 1997 .. (several tornados in Norfolk, Va)
Hurricane Bonnie, 1998
Hurricane Dennis, 1999
Hurricane Floyd, 1999

HIRT Team Member from here...

Tropical Storm Barry, 2001
Hurricane Michelle, 2001
Tropical Storm Edouard, 2002
Tropical Storm Gustav, 2002
Tropical Storm Isidore, 2002
Tropical Storm Henri, 2003
Hurricane Isabel, 2003

All of the storms before I joined the HIRT team, were here in Va. .. There were several tropical storms that past over or very close to the area that were not mentioned... They did little in the way of rain and anything else, therefor they did not get mentioned...

[SunnyThoughts]

Hi everyone... been a long time since i posted on a board, but here goes.
I live in a small town just to the east of Pensacola, Fla. I remember camille in 69, i was 9 yrs old... my parents were frantic, not knowing exactly where she was going.. we evacuated and went north to montgomery, ala. I can remember the horrible storms and tornados that ripped through even up that far north. Frederick hit here in the 70s..i again was evacuated (my father was the type that if a hurricane even got in the gom, he was outta here). Now we come to the twins... Erin and opal. I had never before ridden out a hurricane... other than a tropical storm or two which we averaged getting once every couple of years it seemed. Well by 1995, i was married with a family... Erin was coming in... supposedly a cat 1... so we decided to ride that out as well. I stood at my sliding glass door (stupid i know) and watched 16 oak trees bend double and break in the winds..we thought the winds would never stop. When it was over...we had 22 trees down on our property.. many of which were laying across the road...power lines were everywhere... and brush (twigs and limbs) up to your knees as far as the eye could see. We had no power for 7 days and night, our neighborhood was the very last to have our power restored. And that was a cat 1. We stayed for opal also... but with friends who lived a little farther from the shoreline. I know opal destroyed pensacola beach, but the destruction here was much less than erin's. We only lost power for about 8 hours... few limbs and twigs down, but nothing major. After all this, i can honestly say..Im not so sure that i'd even stay for a cat 1 hurricane again, that was enough for me!

[HurricaneBill]

Here goes:

Hurricane Gloria 1985 (lived in Peabody, MA at the time and was 4 years old. Far from the eye but in the upper right quadrant. Pretty bad storm IMHO.)

Tropical Storm Hugo 1989 (Now lived in East Longmeadow in western Massachusetts. Hugo only brushed us, but we got some rain and some wind gusts)

Hurricane Bob 1991 (Although in the upper left quadrant and far inland, Bob was pretty bad. I have never seen trees bend in the wind like that. Sustained winds probably reached around 60 mph with gusts to 80 mph. We got a ton of rain. Maybe 8 inches, definitely at least 5 inches)

Tropical Storm Danielle 1992 (probably a depression at this point. Rain and wind event)

Tropical Storm Bertha 1996 (Heavy rain and gusty winds)

Tropical Storm Danny 1997 (rain and wind event)

Hurricane/Tropical Storm Floyd 1999 (Floyd was a 2-day event because he was so big! Very rainy and very windy. We got at least 7 inches of rain. Possibly as high as 11 inches.)

Tropical Depression Allison 2001 (She dumped a ton of rain up here too!)

[Typhoon_Willie]

Most notable for me would have been Hurricane Cleo and Hurricane Isabelle...

[Anonymous]

I love hearing hurricane stories. Any and all please reply this makes for some great reading.

[robag]

Hurricane Kate-1985

Hurricane Floyd-1987
My house was hit by a tornado the night before the hurricane came up through the Keys. When a storm approaches the Keys from the Gulf side, we usually have tornadoes before the tropical system arrives. When Floyd arrived the following day the eye went over my house. It was really interesting to walk down to the Gulf during the eye and hear the back end of the storm approaching from behind the mangrove islands. by the way, I was nine months pregnant at the time.

Hurricane Andrew- I evacuated Key Largo for the"safety" of Miami. I had a four year old and a one month old in tow. I spent the night in a warehouse in Kendall. it would take to long to describe that horrible night.

Hurricane Georges

Hurricane Irene

Hurricane Mitch- My neighborhood was severely damaged by the tornadoes that accompanied it.

[cajungal]

I forgot to mention that we also lost our fishing camp due to hurricane Andrew. It was located on Bayou Dularge near the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico. It was only accessible by boat. When my grandpa went check on it a couple of days later, only 2 walls were still standing. I almost cried when I heard the news. I been going to that camp since I was a baby. So many fond memories. Fishing off the wharf. Catching shrimp with the popier. Riding up and down the bayou in the pirogue. And swimming; too. Yes, being stupid kids swimming in the bayou with alligators about 20 feet away. It is amazing none of us drowned or got attacked.

We bought a new fishing camp about a year later. But, it has never been the same. It is not far from where the old camp was. And I just wonder how long this one will last. And the erosion is so bad, there is almost nothing to put the camps on down there. Almost all the marsh has turn into open water.