Florida panhandle--Kevin (FL)

My brother works as a buyer for the government and lives right in the middle of that mess.

He reports that after returning, he finds no water, power, sewage or gasoline as of yet and probably won't be for 3 weeks or so.

Further, he says that the scammers are running rampant down there charging outlandish prices to "help".

He calls 'em the "good ol' boys". :>)

Allan

Sounds like your brother was one of the lucky ones though. At least he still has a house to come home to.

Yes, the rest of the family chose to be successful; I stayed here in NE. :>)

Both were darned lucky in that neither received much damage; that was one stinker of a storm.

I'd come down there amongst the rest of you, but then I wouldn't qualify to whine and complain about the lack of money, the draughts, the hail storms or the tornadoes. I mean, what kinda fun would that be? :>)

Did you sneak by old 'Ivan the terrible' without much trouble?

Allan

We did board up the windows and pack as much as we could of non replaceable items in the car and head north. We left at 4am Wed. trying to miss the rush hour.
There were reports on the TV Tues. night of people that were caught in traffic for 9 hours and went a whole 40 miles trying to get out of New Orleans.

The storm was headed straight for us and did hit the tip of the state by the mouth of the Miss river pretty bad before turning toward Ala. and Fla. That put us on the west (good) side of the storm so all we got was some winds about 40 mph but no rain.

Fla. was on the east (bad) side of the storm with the winds out of the south. This wind out of the south pushes the water in a large wave. It is not so bad while it is out at sea but as it comes on shore the shallow water cause the wave to stand up into a 15-20 ft wall of water. This is where the real damage comes from.

There is a X story hotel on the beach in Fla. I saw a picture of. The water could not get at the concrete building that is built to newer building codes but it did undermine all the dirt from under the building causing it to sink. Looks like about the 2nd or 3rd floor is now at ground level. Real mess over there. I think last I heard was like 20 something dead.