While we have a lot of fun, let me be utterly serious at this time.
I grew up on the Texas Gulf Coast and have lived in Pensacola and Jacksonville, FL, prior to moving to Nashville in 1990. I lived most of my life warily eyeing the hurricanes that made it into the Gulf. My earliest memory is my dad carrying me through our living room , , . through waist deep water (HIS waist) and through the backyard to our next door neighbors' house, through gale force winds and rain. They had an old house that was up on blocks. We kids slept on the floor and I could hear the flood water lapping right beneath us as if we were on a pier. This was hurricane Audrey in the late 50s.
You can't 'ride out' or 'have a hurricane party' with a monster like Isabel. I'm writing this Monday AM. Where it will go, how strong it will be if it comes ashore, who knows? But, SHOULD it be heading for you at its current strength, LEAVE.
Make sure your homeowners insurance is paid up, get the wife, kids, pets, and irreplaceable papers and GO.
This is how it will come.
The weather immediately before will be nice. It will then seem as if a hard rain is coming. Before any bad weather begins, the wind will steadily pick up. If you're at the beach the waves and tides will grow higher and higher in an ominous fashion. Over the next 24 hours, the rain and wind will increase steadily past anything most have us have ever experienced. Hurricanes spawn lots of tornados. But unlike a tornado whose winds come and go quickly, this wind will blow faster and faster for many hours. Trees will begin to dance. Yard furniture become projectiles. The lights will certainly go out, as well as phones, water, cable, even cell phones. Rain and flooding of almost Biblical proportions. You could have several feet of water in your home. Your house could survive only to have the neighbor's tree come through the living room. You or your car or your house could fly. And unless you have an M1 Abrams in the driveway, you're trapped. You probably won't be able to drive over the downed trees, power poles, etc., or your car will be already flooded and useless. Transformers will be exploding on poles like m80s.
Now if you are in the bullseye, then the eye will pass over you. Calm, sunny weather for a little while. You will see that you are in a 'canyon'. with a wall of clouds around you. Then everything I described above will happen all over again in reverse order.
Are you getting the picture? You can't go to 'an interior room' and wait for this to blow over.
Afterwards, there may be no power, water, gas, etc. for days, maybe weeks. There may be no grocery stores, restuarants, banks. The emergency workers will be completely overwhelmed. You may no longer have a home, or it may be horribly damaged.
I've run through this because I'm always stunned by how many 'new' people have moved to the Gulf and Atlantic coasts who have NO IDEA of just how dangerous these big hurricanes are. And even if you live 50 to 100 miles inland, you can be in danger.
Fortunately, lots of these things weaken, stay out to sea, or they miss you and hit somewhere else.
But if you are in or near the bullseye, take care, be smart, take you and yours and get the hell out. Later, when you think your friends will laugh at you for running out, they won't.
They will wish they had also.
Good Luck and God Bless You
J o e y
