My hurricane stories HAVE been told. It is one of my favorite things to tell about. I am sure you have all heard them before. BUT with Irene looming just East of where I am now, it got me thinking... Here we go again! Looks like Irene is missing us, but still... HERE WE GO AGAIN!! It really is a rather interesting story....
I have lived in 5 different areas and there is only ONE area that I have lived in that I was NOT hit by a hurricane! That ONE place? HERE! In South GA! And so it is safe to say that I have not been hit by a hurricane while in GA... YET!
I grew up in Pensacola, FL which is the City of Five Flags. It should be called the City of Hurricane Alley! My most memorable Pensacola hurricanes were Erin and Opal! Opal being my most scary one because we had to evacuate to a shelter so we went up to the a high school and had to leave my beloved Benny (Benji, my dog) home. We put mattresses in the center room of the house and locked him in there. It was SO SAD. Luckily the house was fine and so was Benny. But the high school we went to (which would later be MY high school)... well... the gym roof got blown off. Should have stayed home!! HAHA. No power for weeks.
After marrying TJ, he went up to Yorktown, VA for A school. I went up there after a month away from him... we rented this studio place. We were there TWO months and a week before we were leaving, hurricane Isabel hit Hampton Roads in VA. It had been a while since their previous hurricane!! I come to town for two months and BAM! FROM nhc.com- "Isabel is considered to be one of the most significant tropical cyclones to affect east-central Virginia since Hurricane Hazel in 1954."
We then moved to Cape Canaveral/Cocoa Beach, FL. That is when the real fun began. We lived directly on the ocean on Patrick AFB. While we lived there, Hurricane Charley (cat 4 by landfall) hit the WEST side of FL, coming up through the Tampa area. I really did not think we would see THAT much damage. But as the neighbors trampoline, dog houses, grills, and patio furniture went flying by my back door and water began to seep in my bottom floor, I thought otherwise.
Frances was next. Hurricane Fances (cat 2 at landfall - Sept 5th), however, forced us to a mandatory evacuation of the island because it was coming in directly from the Atlantic. TJ had to, of course, leave on the boat, so I left with Gracie and headed to Pensacola to stay with mom and dad. I could not get back on base where I lived after the hurricane so I stayed a little while in Pensacola. A little over a week later and I had to go because Ivan (cat 4 by landfall Sept 16th) was headed up to the Gulf Coast. By the time I got home, and realized my house had flooded again (worse this time of course), I had to leave again because Hurricane Jeanne (cat 3 by landfall Sept 25th) was forcing another evacuation with another east coast hit on FL. This time I went to a hotel with another one of the wives in Orlando (that is another blog for another time....looooordy), and was not able to return home for a quite a few days. Trust me, two women, 3 dogs, in a small hotel room with NO POWER is not that fun. When I did get home, my house was flooded again. Needless to say, I got 1 good steam cleaning and 2 complete carpet changes that year!! PS- those were the first FL east coast hurricanes in over 10 years.
I finally ended up in South Texas! After two smooth years of no hurricanes, Hurricane Dolly (cat 1 by landfall) found me! Although TJ was not stationed on a boat at the time, the CG had convievently sent him to VA for a school that week. Mom and dad had come to see me (without knowing Dolly was headed that way as well) and us three rode it out together. No power for over a week and the flooding was ABSURD!! That hard hard hard South Texas ground does not drain well. From weather wiki - "Hurricane Dolly is considered to be the most destructive hurricane to hit the Rio Grande Valley in 41 years; the last such storm was Beulah in 1967, but Beulah was not more damaging; it was just deadlier."
SO, now I live in South GA, and I have come to the conclusion that it is now IF a hurricane comes to find me again, but WHEN! Although this part of GA has not been hit in like a billion years and the last time any part of GA was hit was in 1979 when David hit Savannah! I will still believe that it is not going to happen AFTER I move.
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