Tuesday, Jul. 15, 2003 - 4:11 p.m.

Hurricanes and flooding and Claudette, OH MY!!

Hurricanes and flooding and Claudette

Hurricanes and flooding and Claudette, OH MY!!

8:15 A.M.
First off, before I get into this topic, and big HUGE thank you to the Tatnan for inviting Mary Boleyn to do a guest entry for her 600th Entry Extravaganza!!� I had a great time writing it and I sincerely hope my parody did her justice.

Claudette is here.� This is not as bad as I thought it might be.� I honestly thought the overall effect and of course the wind were going to be stronger than this.� Its only gusting to about 40mph which is nothing.� Its raining, and its windy.� Its uneventful, at least in Houston proper.� We are even on the dirty side of the storm, meaning the eye of the storm is making land fall to the south of us.� She barely even a category one.� However, Galveston is getting pounded and I have looked at some pics online and its flooding pretty bad down there.� But you know what you are getting yourself into when you move down there. That's why God invented houses on stilts and insurance. People who live right on the coast seem to take it all in stride when storms come it. They know to expect damage.

Driving into work this morning I saw this poor bird trying to fly and it was basically flying in place for a bout 5 seconds before it caught a break and was able to move on.� That was kind of surreal and humorous.� I actually called home about it.� I don't think this will be as bad as Tropical Storm Allison from two years ago that completely flooded the city.� I-10 was under something like 25 feet of water in some places.� It was horrible.� Luckily I was high and dry.

The only full blown hurricane I have actually been in is Alicia, a category three storm which hit Galveston and Houston directly on August 18, 1983, a couple of weeks before I started my freshman year of high school.� Some damage pics from Galveston Island are here� and I was unfortunately unable to find any from the general Houston area online.� The storm came ashore in the early hours of the morning and what woke me up was not the wind and rain, but my ceiling fan clicking off when the power went out.� We actually went outside during the storm in the 80 mph wind.� And the eye of the storm went right over us.� THAT is a surreal experience.� Storm, wind, storm, wind, storm, wind, then bright, sunny, calmness, then storm, wind, storm, wind again.�� The worst part of the whole storm is that we lost power for about 5 days, in the sweltering heat of August.� August in Houston is famous for being hot and humid - hot and humid to the point that several people die from the heat.� We had no real damage to speak of but there were several downed trees in our neighborhood.� Alicia was actually a pretty devastating hurricane though.� Over 2 billion dollars in damages in some estimates.� I think there have only been 4 storms that have been costlier and of course the worst of course was Andrew (the only other US disaster that cost more in terms of insurance claims was the WTC attack).

4:00 P.M.
Well suffice it to say the storm is pretty much over.� I went out at lunch and saw literally, one skinny tree branch broken.� The only report of injury I have read or heard about is a man in Matagorda (where the storm came ashore) who was standing and looking out his window when it shattered on him.� We should be grateful that this is it.� I really should get a gold membership for this diary so I can post pics because let's face it, the radar image of the Gulf of Mexico is pretty impressive looking when there is a huge storm that covers the whole body of water.� Of course now the storm has moved west and is not really showing up on the Houston radar.� We are under a tornado watch though, my favorite.� So, I guess this ends the Storm Watch 2003 entry.� If we have another one this summer I'm sure it'll be written about.

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