GeoLane at PTD dot NET wrote in message
...
On Fri, 26 Aug 2011 12:00:41 -0400, "Ed Huntress"

Good luck. You'll need it more than most. I could say something here about
the "for sale" sign that went through our neighbor's window during
Hurricane
Hazel (probably before your time), but it wouldn't be appropriate...

OK Lets hear the story. I remember Hazel too - 1954 IIRC. It took
down an apple tree in our front yard. We were living outside Philly
in Phoenixville then. Were you in Bloom during that one? You would
have been pretty young since you're not much older than me.

RWL

It's not really much of a story. Yes, I was 6 at the time, but we were
living in West Trenton, NJ, a half-mile from the Delaware River. The river
came up to within 50' of our property line during the storm.

Hazel was a freakish storm -- it came up inland, through PA and NY State,
but kept its wind velocity, all the way up to Toronto.

I was sitting in our bay window watching house shutters, pieces of siding,
and tons of paper and trash sail by when my mother made me get away from the
window. Shortly we heard a crash from our neighbor's house. A big for-sale
sign that had been in front of a house up the street came sailing along like
Odd Job's bowler and sliced right through the bay window of our neighbor's
house, knocking out some of the window framework and landing in the back of
their living room. It could have taken someone's head right off.

The memory stuck with me and, when on land, I don't go outside when the wind
exceeds a steady 40 mph or so, ever since.

--
Ed Huntress