Its Deja Vu All Over Again

[Dan Gould]

Well, amazingly, at 7:30, we've still got power in Delray Beach. It started wavering about 4:30 pm, but never so much that, say, the TV would switch off. The lights dim for a split second; the PC battery beeps, but its kept on going. The good news at the moment is that the eyewall has past us, but its directly east of Jupiter where my wife's family is, so its definitely getting very heavy there. Not sure how much longer the power will hold-radar shows a really, really, really strong band of showers is about to go through Boynton (Marty's town) and then us. If we still have power then ...

But anyway, we're playing with the house's money at this point. With Frances, our power went off long before it got heavy here, and we've had strong winds and heavy rain for many hours now.

[vibes]

Best of luck to those of you in the southeast, especially Florida. I can't imagine what it must be like, especially for trying to get things you need (plywood, batteries, food, etc.) before the hurricane hits. I was in Hong Kong when a typhoon hit in 1997 and it was chaos in the grocery store before the storm hit.

I mentioned this in another thread, but I handle batteries inventory for the entire Best Buy chain, and dealing with these four hurricanes this year has kept me extremely busy. There have been days in the last two months where we've sold, in the state of Florida alone, more than double the amount of C and D batteries that we would normally sell chainwide in a week. It's really unbelievable. Again, best of luck to all of you who have been or will be affected by Jeanne.

[BERIGAN]

Anyone watching CNN/FOX/Weatherchannel footage? I don't know if the reporters are closer to the eye this time, but they are saying almost to a man(and woman) that it is worse this time, than during any of the other hurricanes. Winds were 120 I think when the storm came ashore, but that was almost 4 hours ago, and the guys on CNN in Melbourne are saying it is the worst wind of all right now! I recall with Andrew that they found out it had gotten even stronger just as it came ashore, wonder if the same thing happened here...it came ashore just about the same place as Francis, but much worse it seems, the guys on CNN were just about blown away! Damn, damage will probably be worse than the other storms....Jeanne already killed 1500+ in Haiti!

Edited September 26, 2004 by BERIGAN

[Bright Moments]

miami checking in. all ok here! B-)

[dsgtrane]

Power back in the West Palm area. A few more trees down but no house damage again. Sure was a loud 6 hours.

Marty/Dan-How'd it go for you?

[jazzbo]

David, glad you checked in and all is well.

Nice avatar too, I always dig that painting (which you showed me first!)

[catesta]

Yes, glad all is well.

[dsgtrane]

Thanks guys!

[dsgtrane]

Nice avatar too, I always dig that painting (which you showed me first!)

My man Horace, as I'm sure you know.

[connoisseur series500]

miami checking in. all ok here! B-)

Babe thread the only casualty?

[connoisseur series500]

Glad to hear everyone's fine.

[Big Wheel]

I fled back to Boston on Friday. Thank God I didn't have to put up with this crap again. Many of the shutters are probably going to be up until I go home around November, though.

[Dan Gould]

Delray Beach checking in. The short story:

Wind definitely stronger; but it blew for a shorter length of time than Francis, which was moving so slow. Power stayed on 12 hours longer, didn't lose it til 11 pm Saturday, which gave me false hope we'd make it through without losing it.

Damage was nonexistent and cleanup very minimal (I think Francis knocked down a lot of stuff that would have otherwise come down in Jeanne). Best of all, we used the fence sections that we salvaged from the first storm to brace the existing fence sections; it must have worked-they stayed up!

To give you an idea of the difference in clean up:

Francis filled 23 large trash bags with tree debris.

Jeanne only filled 5.

Worst was yesterday, baking in the house with the dog. But power came on about 6 pm, just in time to save what was in the freezer from reaching the point of no return.

Now the only problem is that our DSL was knocked out, otherwise I'd have posted last night from home instead of this morning at the office.

Glad you made it OK, David, hopefully we'll hear from Marty soon.

[dsgtrane]

My folks live fairly near Marty and got power back last night.

[BERIGAN]

Here in Atlanta, we got much more rain than "they" said we would, but the wind was not nearly as bad as the previous storms..Mom didn't have to miss Radiation this time!

A friend of mine in Duluth (Ga, northeast of Atl) suffered some major flood damage from the last storm, and he is working in Albany Ga right now, hundreds of miles away...I think he doesn't even care if his house flooded again, just about everything was damaged at ground level the last time!

[dsgtrane]

I got email from Marty. He's fine.

[Dan Gould]

Unfortunately, we're not entirely fine. Turns out that Bellsouth got positively clobbered, and our DSL may not be back until October 6th!