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Hurricane Gustav and the Gulf Coast


On the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans has a wary eye on Gustav, some communities canceling several scheduled memorials and focusing on storm preparations instead.

On Friday, Tropical Storm Gustav was near Jamaica -claiming 67 deaths in its path. Forecasters said it could hit the Louisiana coast early next week as a major hurricane. City and state officials were preparing for possible evacuations starting Saturday. Some nursing homes and hospitals planned to start moving patients further inland.

Mississippi’s Governor called for a mandatory evacuation of Katrina victims still living in temporary homes along the coast on Friday.

New Orleans is taking no chances and said it is prepared to move 30,000 residents in an evacuation - estimates of the city’s population are between 310,000 to 340,000 people, more than 100,000 less than before Katrina. We are about to see what has been learned three years later.

The only thing the National Hurricane Center can say for sure is that landfall is possible throughout the northern Gulf Coast, showing a wide cone of probability, from Texas to the Florida Panhandle. Gee, thanks for that guys – as usual, a flip of the coin is just as useful.

Those of us in Florida and throughout the U.S. are keeping you in our thoughts, fingers crossed, while looking over our shoulders at Tropical Storm Hanna, playing off to our east.

windy | 2008 Hurricane Season, Gustav | Comments Off

Watching Fay in the Keys


Fay, the sixth tropical storm of the 2008 hurricane season, is expected to become a hurricane as it passes through western Cuba. Having recently moved to the upper Keys, we are calmly keeping an eye on the latest developments. Hurricanes are nothing new us as we have lived in this state before Andrew in ‘92 and have lived along the east coast our entire lives.

As of Saturday afternoon on August 16th, Fay was located between Haiti and Cuba, moving westward. The storm was centered about 80 kilometers south-southeast of Guantanamo, Cuba, with winds of 45 mph with higher gusts.

Long-range forecasts show the storm reaching the Florida Keys late Monday before heading into the southeastern United States. However, as we all know the erratic nature of hurricane movement, long-range forecasts are no more accurate than the flip of a coin.

Sunday, August 17th……As of 11:50 p.m. the forecast hasn’t changed much. A mandatory evacuation of tourists was ordered Sunday morning at 8 a.m…….could this be a case of premature evacuation?

As we did a few years ago during Rita, we decided to spend the day in Key West. While driving down, we saw the northbound bumper-to-bumper traffic from those heeding the warnings to get out early. We felt sorry for the hard working employees and vendors in Key West, who were left standing around, looking bored and lost.

This is the slow season anyway, so most of the people who stayed in Key West were left wondering, what was the rush to evacuate?

The weather was fine all day, overcast with a few sprinkes here and there, which made for an enjoyable afternoon of bar-hopping and shopping without being beaten down by the usual August heat.

Monday, August 18th…..About noon…..a little windy and some light rain here in the Islamorada area…nothing much to get excited about. Here’s a great link to check out for those of you who like to monitor these things:

http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/tracking/at200806_5day.html#a_topad

Shortly before 4:00 p.m. the eye passed over Key West…..still a tropical storm, it is not very impressive so far - just some wind and rain, something all of us here are used to, but the media continues to try and make something out of it.

No worries here.

windy | 2008 Hurricane Season, Fay | Comments (0)

Hurricane Bertha - An Early Record Breaker

Serving as a wake-up call to forecasters, Hurricane Bertha formed much farther east than usual, being so early in hurricane season and strengthened much quicker than predicted. Hopefully, this is not an indication of a busy year.

The storm formed near the Cape Verde islands off Africa on July 3rd  and by July 7th it had become the first “major” Atlantic  hurricane of 2008, with sustained winds of at least 115 miles per hour, a Category 3 storm, according to the Saffir-Simpson scale.

Heading northwest, it was predicted to pass near Bermuda, and predicted to loose strength due to atmospheric conditions in its path. In fact, the center of Bertha passed to the east of Bermuda, at tropical storm strength, soaking the island and leaving about 4,000 without power. Presently it is headed east and away from the Northern U.S.

Hurricane Fact: Bertha became the longest-lived July Atlantic tropical cyclone on record as of July 15th.

The National Hurricane Center’s Web site’ information on Bertha

windy | 2008 Hurricane Season, Bertha | Comments Off