Some Hurricane History... the Calm Before the Storm. Later This Week Things Pick Up. By Labor Day We Will Be Dealing with Hurricanes Somewhere. Sooner Rather Than Later.
Check out that wave by Africa.
If I had a dollar for every time I said that :)
2 Orange areas in the Atlantic.
Invest 97 today.
Invest 98 tomorrow?
This is an annual blog.
After I vent, rant and lose it.
After I vent, rant and lose it.
I remember other August years.
I remember Andrew and Katrina and Wilma.
Hurricane Season is about to take off.
Get ready .....
....here's some Hurricane History.
Lesson 1.
Hurricanes blow and howl and destory.
Lesson 2.
We rebuild, we come together, we start over.
Hurricane Season 2020 is not cancelled!
Wanted to do a blog based on some Hurricane History tonight. We have two orange circles in the distant Atlantic with models taking them towards our side of the world and one most likey getting into the Gulf of Mexico.
I came across this image yesterday by accident online.
I knew what it was... it was boats left high and dry from Andrew.
I knew that was down near Old Culter Road.
A beautiful road that follows the coastline.
Homes on the Bay side are mansions on the water.
The storm surge carried those big ships over the land..
...and dumped them there.
And that house probably went through the 1926 Hurricane.
As it was built early in 1926.
People rent it out and stay there.
But the site shows pictures from the storm.
The price of living in paradise.
Check out that picture bottom left.
Here's the link to the history ....
Hard to believe it was so ravaged by Andrew.
So I decided to check out the location on Google.
There's a canal with a bridge where kids hang out.
Old Culter Road... where kids in love take long rides ...
...in sports cars with the top down and the sky above.
Enjoying the beauty of Miami.
Incredible tropical canopy of trees.
That's a tree that wrapped it's roots around a coral rock fence.
And kept on growing.
Yet Andrew along and tore it to pieces.
Decorating the countryside with ships from the sea.
Hurricane Andrew hit South Dade like a Wrecking Ball pounding everything in it's way. My daughter-in-law lived down there when she was a toddler.... the house came apart she stayed in the bathtub with her mother keeping a mattress over her head and her big strong father keeping the door closed to try and keep them safe in the bathroom. When Irma threatened to come to Miami she took her baby girl and my son put her on the last plane out of Miami, no more babies being shielded in the bathtub in hurricanes for her. My son, my grandson and several Miami kids drove up to Raleigh to avoid Irma while others stayed. Hurricanes can change you in ways and you are never the same again. Some pick up and leave town, some argue until they get divorced and someone leaves town and others just hunker down, clean up and wait for it to all grow back again. After Andrew on Miami Beach where I was the trees and grass and flowers came back faster than we have bounced back from Covid 19. Being honest. Years later she married my son in a beautiful bayside wedding complete with a large tent and a very picture perfect South Florida wedding at a home of a family friend just down the road from that place up at the top of the blog.
A secluded location.
No one univited.
No press... or party crashers.
and oh what a party it was.
We took family pics on the rooftop...
...and in the mangroves bottom right in the pic above.
And we danced where they later filmed...
the finale of Burn Notice.
A blurry memory...
..dancing with the groom.
To "Dear Momma" from Tupac.
His choice of song.
He wanted to get married in February.
You know why?
No hurricanes.
That's a Miami kid.
And yes there was a religious ceremony before the party.
A slice of Miami life.
One day you're partying by the Bay...
... weeks later you are boading up the house.
But life goes on.
Life comes back.
A lot of pain in between.
A bit of walking down memory lane here.
Then there was Camille.
There's legends in Camille.
Did people party in the apartment building...
...that got smashed to pieces in the storm surge?
It has it's own Wiki link.
Look how incredibly peaceful and calm it is there.
The apartment building was just to the right.
The Gulf of Mexico across the street.
Until it surged inland knocking it all down.
That road runs along the Gulf and the water is usually placid and quiet often like a pool with no waves but when a Category 5 comes your way there well the storm surge can smash anything in it's path. It's a beautiful part of the country. I've been there... stood on that site as many of us do, staring out at the Gulf of Mexico and tried to imagine what horrors could have happened that night with the hurricane raging outside. I was in Hurricane Andrew on Miami Beach, huddled upstairs with my family in a house that lived through the 1926 Hurricane so I figured it could withstand another one and yes it did. But the howling wind, the flashes of purple lighting in the purple rain splashing spidery patters across the sky as transformer after transformer exploded in the tropical night is what I remember most.
Camille was a late blooming tropical wave.
That came together in the Caribbean in August.
Andrew was a problematic weak tropical storm...
...then it became a Category 5 Hurricane.
So what is my point tonight? I'm writing, thinking and sharing my thoughts with you. Life in the path of hurricanes can make you crazy sometimes and we are already a little bit crazy from Covid. I wanted to go to Trader Joes today but there was a line around the block, so that didn't happen. And I had to wonder as today was just a mild, nice weather day in Raleigh where people seemed annoyed but patient how patient would people be in Miami in 90 degree heat and almost 90% humidity with the fear of another big one on it's way to destroy what little is left of what we have since Covid changed our lives in February and March. I was in a foul mood after wearing a mask, a nice mask, for 2 hours and couldn't wait to get home and get undressed, take a long shower and put something comfortable on. Just being honest.
Storms are coming. Storms can destroy your world. The one thing that isn't cancelled is the 2020 Hurricane Season. Go figure. I can't tell you that if you live in Miami or Galveston or Pass Christian that a tropical wave rolling off of Africa won't be knocking at your door. Sure you can move away to Wyoming or Kentucky but everythng has something somewhere. A friend moved to Chicago to get away from South Florida and a dereceho came through her suburb stripping every tree in sight of leaves and branches were blown across the lawn and she wrote next to the picture on Facebook "I thought I left this crap when I left Miami" but no Mother Nature always has something up it's sleeve.
Don't believe it cannot happen to you.
This was on my block in Miami Beach after Andrew.. just down the block. All I can remember really is barricades of rotting trees and debris 7feet high along the sidewalk waiting to be picked up, moldy furniture that people tossed onto my debris pile as they drove down the block looking for a space to get rid of their ruined things. The mold grew in the hot sun, everyone's nerves were on edge. And by January things had grown back, the palm trees looked better, the trash was picked up, our cable was reconnected though bits and pieces of signs from stores on Arthur Godfrey Drive lay in the swail by my parents house a block away catching the light from the sun looking like fake rubies and sapphires.
Note the date of this blog I took that picture from and you'll see this is what we all do in August, we remember other years and other storms. After the storm nothing was normal and it felt like nothing would ever be normal again. And, what do I remember? Sitting in the upstairs alcove that was most protected next to the nursery and a large bathroom listening to Bryan Norcross talking in the dark from his studio bunker, listening to the howling wind ... the house on occasion taking a hard punch from the howling wind and feeling a bit of a shudder as we lay on the floor and sometimes I could hear the sound of waves crashing on the ocean caught in the wind mixed in with the howling sound that you only hear in a real hurricane. I remember as a child, sitting in the dark next to my baby brother's crib trying protectively big sister like to keep him calm and waiting for the next howl of the wind and each time I was exhilirated in a way that's hard to believe. I suppose I wasn't worried we were going to die and I knew from the radio that it was down near Tavenier in the Keys and Marathon was getting slammed but even up in Miami you could hear the howl of the wind. It's not a real hurricane video but a good short video with some howling wind.
It's wild. I'm granted a bit nuts about weather. Some people are terrified others mesmerized.
So this is traditional. On Friday I lost it and vented and ranted and did my yearly rant before the start of the hurricane season... the real season... the mean season. Tonight I'm remembering hurricanes and thinking on the big ones and wondering if we will see one this year that goes down in the record books; some busy years deliver multiple big ones that are remembered forever and the stories are handed down from generation to generation as Miami kids hear the stories of the 1926 Hurricane or Donna or Betsy or Andrew and in Louisiana and Mississippie kids hear about Camille and Betsy and Katrina.
Laura is the next name up.
I live in Raleigh now and when a storm is near by sometimes I go down to Wrightsville Beach (a long drive) and often this time of year I'm in Miami during hurricane season but this year I'm a big grounded trying not to travel yet but only time will tell.
I can't promise you a rose garden but I can promise you this year that has been filled with thorns that will deliver more tropical trouble soon.
I said weeks ago that around the weekend of August 23rd thorugh Labor Day Weekend we will be dealing with Hurricanes. Maybe something beginning to develop over the next few days but we are a good 8 or 9 days before we have to worry on landfalls.
Will Laura become a problem? And where will Marco go? Wouldn't it be ironic if Marco went to Marco Island?
This is what we do in those quiet days before the season really starts and I mean the part that really counts. So stay tuned.
Could they be Laura and Marco??
Mike from Spaghetti Models is drawing possibilities.
This is what we do.
Because I promise you.
This is the Calm Before the Storm.
Sweet Tropical Dreams,
Only good dreams,
Besos BobbiStorm
@bobbistorm on Twitter and Instagram.
Thank you for reading my Hurricane Diary, the weather blog ... writing helps me calm down, get my thoughts straight and process everything going on and trust me there is so much going on.
posted by BobbiStorm @ 7:44 PM
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