Re: storms

Jim, I weathered (pun intended) several hurricanes in my Florida youth.  In 
those days we
didn't have warning systems like today, and nobody told us to evacuate.  I 
remember one
in Pensacola about 1950 that blew pretty hard and messed things up a bit - 
the biggest
problem was being without power.  And another a few years earlier than that 
when a 
whole row of houses at Jacksonville Beach just toppled over on their fronts 
because
the sand had been washed out in front of them.  But mainly people just did 
what you
are doing - picked up anything loose like planters and outdoor furniture.  I 
remember
that at Pensacola Air Station where I worked the bus-stop shelters all had 
large cement
blocks at each end, with a big metal hook set in each block.  When a big blow 
was
threatened, they had cables like huge bungee cords that looped over the tops 
of the
shelters and attached to the hooks.  But the big difference between now and 
then is
the sheer number of people involved, the places they have built, and the sort 
of buildings
they have put up.  The potential for damage is much greater than 50 years 
ago, but
I wonder if the number of traffic accidents caused by a panicky evacuation 
could be
less than the storm damage. It sounds to me as if you have things pretty well 
under control.  Hang in there!
Auralie

In a message dated 08/13/2004 10:42:42 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
jsinger@igc.org writes:
What's a basement?

Seriously, our house has small jalousie windows [jealous widows, we 
call them] that the wind can throw a tree limb or something through but 
probably not bow enough to break. And then, we have planted a jungle 
around the house, so that will be something of a windbreak and barrier 
to flying objects.

The only thing I find somewhat worrisome is that Ms. Fatma likes to 
grow things in pots and hanging baskets, so we've tried to set most of 
these on the ground amongst the shrubberies [with a tip of the hat to 
Monty Python] on the theory that the wind will be so broken up at 
ground level that it can't do much damage. And we put a new roof on the 
house a couple of months ago, so that's not likely to suffer damage.

And this morning, I picked all the remaining avocados from the tree, 
thereby reducing the number of potential missiles.

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