On Thu, 25 Oct 2012 13:53:51 -0400, wrote:

On Wed, 24 Oct 2012 16:51:40 -0700, Oren wrote:

On Wed, 24 Oct 2012 13:55:34 -0700 (PDT), CRAIG ORAL SOMERFORD
wrote:

Hurricane Tips

Have you even been in a hurricane? How many?

Lots of them, 3 where the eye was less than 20 miles away. (Charley
more like 10 and we were on the Northeast side)

If you want to test your hurricane preparedness, turn off the main
breaker in your house, the city water and gas if you have it.
See how long you last before you really can't stand it any more and
when you break down and turn it all back on, think about what would
happen if it didn't come back on ... for a couple weeks.
We had friends in Punta Gorda who were living in the 19th century for
2 months.
That is what happens after a hurricane.
The storm itself is a whole nother thing. Think, roofs flying off,
stuff hitting your house at 90 MPH, trees falling, a foot or more of
rain in a few hours and water coming up 10 feet higher than it
normally is with white caps on top. If you are near the coast, that is
a rolling surf on top of a 15-20 foot tide surge.

The only good thing is, in a few hours, the worst of that is over.
Then the real survival exercise starts.

I've been in a number of hurricanes. Hurricane Donna (1960) came out
of the Gulf and tracked up the Caloosahatchee River (direct hit). It
was like the storm lifted all the water out and dumped a mile away,
causing flooding waste deep.

Roofs were lifting and ripping off homes, but we were lucky. My
brother went out and rescued an elder / infirm couple. When it was
all over there were ~30 people in our house.