I’m sitting right in the middle of what I like to call the “cone of death.” It ain’t lookin good. I just have a very bad feeling about it.

I’m anxious to hear from Chicher about how things really went with Gustav, wind and water…..damage in the area, and response wise. Anywho, keep your fingers crossed for us. I’m thinking if it ends up coming here, I may have to put my Mom in the car and head north. We’ll see……. lots to do here in the next few days. Nelse, get the blender out. I’m bringing the rum runners!

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Ahhhhhh things aren’t looking too good here in Florida. One right after another flowing off the coast of Africa. I think they’re forming faster than they did in 2005. I watched the local news last night and Gustav did a pretty good number on Baton Rouge. Seems CNN and MSNBC have all but forgotten the hurricane and are too busy fawning over the Republicans to cover the damage. I think there was quite a bit of damage in the area. They said people who evacuated were told they wouldn’t be going home today, either. I really feel for those people. So I hope Chicher and family are doing ok. I’m sure he’ll let us know when he’s able. I hope they were spared any damage, as he has spent so much of the last three years “rebuilding” with friends and family after Katrina. My thoughts are with you and your family Chicher!

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Hurricane season is heating up. Gustav looks like he’s going to be a force to be reckoned with. Lord knows the Gulf coast doesn’t need another major hurricane. They’ve not recovered from Katrina yet. Also out there is another storm, tropical depression 8, which they say is going to turn into a hurricane and hit the Atlantic coast. I wonder if two hurricanes have ever hit the shores of the U.S. in the same week before. Anyway……. my prayers are that both storms dwindle in strength, but it doesn’t appear that’s going to happen. Chicher…… get the family and head north to Buck’s house. I hope you and your family and all the other people on the Gulf coast are spared this one.

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Here we go again. Wonder if this is going to turn into another year where from here on out it’s one a week we have to watch out for. This one looks like it’s going to hit the U.S……just a matter of where. My prayers go out to the Haitans. They suffer so.

Gustav continued to gain strength after becoming a hurricane early Tuesday and forecasters said it could become a Category 2 hurricane before hitting Haiti’s southern coast.

The fast-forming storm was also on track to hit Cuba.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami said the hurricane’s maximum sustained winds were near 90 mph with higher gusts.

Haitians were told to prepare for evacuations as the storm formed Monday in the Caribbean. Haiti upgraded storm warnings to hurricane warnings along much of its coast as Gustav closed in from the south. A warning means hurricane conditions are expected within 24 hours.
Forecasters said storm preparations in Haiti should be rushed to completion and that floods and landslides were possible across its southern peninsula. The forecasts suggested Gustav’s eye could pass near the capital of Port-au-Prince, home to nearly 3 million people.

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Tropical Depression 3 is expected to bring large amounts of rain to coastal North and South Carolina.

Poor mom and family… They’re vacationing in Myrtle Beach this week. She said they had been seeing a lot of rain. I guess we now know why! They’ll be heading back home tomorrow. Hopefully they’ll bring some of that rain with them. We can use it!

MIAMI, Florida (CNN) — Winds in a tropical depression that formed late Friday near the Carolina coast were approaching tropical storm strength Saturday, the National Hurricane Center said. [...]

A tropical storm warning — meaning that tropical storm conditions with maximum winds of 39 mph are expected within the next 24 hours — was issued for an area from South Santee River, South Carolina, to the North Carolina-Virginia line. [...]

As of 11 a.m. Saturday, the center of TD 3 was about 90 miles east of Charleston, South Carolina, and about 250 miles southwest of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.

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They said this city would never flood. They talked about 1993, and 1966 and 1851, years when the Cedar River swelled and hissed but mostly stayed within its banks. They thought they were safe. They were wrong.
Downtown Cedar Rapids was inundated by the raging Cedar River on Thursday. Heavy rain continued to pound parts of Iowa.
Cedar Rapids is experiencing the worst flooding in the city’s history. And the water is still rising. By Thursday afternoon, the Cedar River was about 29 feet deep, or 17 feet above flood stage, according to the National Weather Service. The water was expected to rise another three feet by Friday morning, and reach a record crest, 12 feet higher than the previous record, set in 1851.

More at the New York Times

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First snow fall in southeastern KY. My parents’ house.

Yep, a wimpy snow for sure. But it’s the first of the season, and it’s bound to piss QG off!

(sorry!)

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Autumn is here. Well…….there……not here. It’s still 90 degrees here. Come October, if we’re lucky, it will drop to about 80. Oh how I miss the change of seasons. The leaves changing colors. There’s nothing as glorious as the colors of fall. I never thought I’d see the day when winter was my favorite season…..but it is now. Come January, no snow……just beautiful blue skies and perfect weather. I guess there’s good and bad wherever you live, weatherwise……. but I sure do miss the fall colors!

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My thoughts and prayers are with the Miskito Indians. This is one bad hurricane.

Hurricane Felix roared ashore early Tuesday as a fearsome Category 5 storm - the first time in recorded history that two top’scale storms have made landfall in the same season. The storm hit near the swampy Nicaragua-Honduras border, home to thousands of stranded Miskito Indians dependent on canoes to make their way to safety.

Felix was the first of two major storms expected to make landfall on Tuesday: Off Mexico’s Pacific coast, Hurricane Henriette churned toward the upscale resort of Cabo San Lucas, popular with Hollywood stars and sea fishing enthusiasts.

On the Nicaraguan coast, 2,000 people were evacuated before the hurricane blew roofs off homes, blocked roads and knocked out telephone service, said Nicaragua’s Civil Defense chief, Rogelio Flores.

More at the AP

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I flew into Chicago yesterday. Got off the plane, got the rental car. I had several hours before I had to pick my daughter up and figured I’d go to the hotel and have a swim. 2 miles out of the airport and the weather hit. I ended up sitting in a parking lot for about 20 minutes because it was soooooooooo bad. Last night more bad weather. The hotel lost power. We had to pack it up and go find another hotel. We’re in for more today. Roads closed, schools closed. The whole Chicagoland area is a mess.
My my my…………
From the Chicago Tribune:

Powerful, fast-moving summer storms left behind swollen rivers, flooded intersections and commuter headaches Thursday afternoon after sending a wall of wind and rain through northern Illinois that tore roofs from buildings, uprooted trees and snapped off electricity to hundreds of thousands across the area.

The damage was widespread, extensive and spookily uniform. Communities across the region faced a massive cleanup job on Friday and flooding threatened to disrupt the morning commute.

So much rain fell that the region’s Deep Tunnel System was overwhelmed, forcing officials to open locks that released storm water and untreated sewage into Lake Michigan. The sudden flooding closed interstate highways around the region.

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Jamaicans dig through whats left of their homes in Bull Bay which were knocked over by a tidal surge, Monday, Aug. 20, 2007. While there was damage, Hurricane Dean did not make a direct hit on the island.

From Sky News:

Hurricane Dean has been upgraded to a potentially catastrophic category five storm as it bears down on the coast of Mexico.

Shortly after midnight the US National Hurricane Centre upgraded it to the highest level, the same as Hurricane Katrina, which devastated parts of the United States in 2005.

At least 12 people have already died as Hurricane Dean swept across the Caribbean.

Tens of thousands of tourists have been fleeing the beaches of the Mayan Riviera as Dean roared toward the ancient ruins and modern oil installations of the Yucatan Peninsula.

The Federation of Tour Operators has said there are about 5,000 British holidaymakers in Yucatan resorts.

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By JOHN HOLUSHA
The New York Times

Floods soaked much of the midsection of the country from Texas to Minnesota today, causing at least 13 deaths as swirling waters washed out roads, triggered mudslides and forced evacuations of low-lying areas.

In Minnesota, Governor Tim Pawlenty said six people had died, some of them when their vehicles fell into sinkholes in roadways, and he declared a state of emergency for parts of the southeastern section of the state. National Guard troops and helicopters were activated for duty in the affected areas.

Thundershowers dumped as much as a foot of rain on Minnesota and neighboring Wisconsin overnight, and several towns along the Mississippi River were evacuated as a precaution. Some homeowners were plucked from the roofs of their houses where they had been forced to flee by the rapidly rising waters.

In Chicago, heavy rains delayed air travelers and flash flooding disrupted commuters heading into the city. More rain was in the forecast, with the National Weather Service predicting as much as three more inches during the day

Schools were closed in parts of Indiana because the storms had deprived them of electric power.

Six people were reported dead in Oklahoma and one in Texas, many of them killed when their vehicles were swept off roads by surging flood waters caused by rain from the remnants of Tropical Storm Erin

read more HERE

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By MARK STEVENSON
The Associated Press

TULUM, Mexico - Hurricane Dean headed for a collision course with Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on Monday, forcing the state-run oil company to abandon its off’shore rigs, and sending tourists fleeing for the airports and locals searching for higher ground. The storm killed 10 people as it crossed the Caribbean.

Dean was already a powerful Category 4 storm as it raked the Cayman Islands. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said it could grow into a monstrous Category 5 hurricane before slashing across the Yucatan Peninsula and emerging in the oil-rich Gulf of Campeche.

Mexico’s state oil company decided Monday to evacuate all 14,000 workers and shut down production on the offshore rigs that extract most of the nation’s oil.

While the storm’s center was expected to strike central Mexico, the outer bands of the storm were likely to bring rain and gusty winds to south Texas - already saturated after an unusually rainy summer. Texas officials were taking no changes - emergency operations centers opened, prison inmates were moved inland, and sandbags distributed.

The Mexican resort city of Cancun began evacuations and arranged for extra flights to help tens of thousands of tourists leave before Dean’s arrival. The hotel zone was quiet on Monday, nearly all guests gone.

read more HERE

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By STEVENSON JACOBS
The Associated Press

GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands - Authorities in the Cayman Islands imposed a curfew and evacuated tourists as the British territory braced for a brush Monday with Hurricane Dean, which has left a trail of destruction across the Caribbean killing at least eight people.

Dean was expected to pass to the south of the Caymans but the government said it still posed a “significant threat” to the islands. Forecasters said the islands could receive up to 12 inches of rain.

Hundreds of frantic vacationers lined up at ticket counters for special flights home, and many slept on the airport floor. Cayman Islands Gov. Stuart Jack said all but 1,500 tourists had been evacuated from the British territory by Sunday afternoon.

“It’s kind of spooky,” said George Mitchell, of Detroit, who missed his flight out. “We don’t know what to do or where to go. It freaks you out.”

The National Hurricane Center in Miami said the first hurricane of the Atlantic season was a powerful Category 4 storm, and could reach the highest level - Category 5, with maximum winds greater than 155 mph - later Monday.

As of 2 a.m. EDT Monday, Dean was about 150 miles southeast of Grand Cayman and was traveling west at 20 mph, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 150 mph, up from 145 mph Sunday.

In Mexico, travelers also slept on floors at Cancun’s international airport, hoping to get one of the last flights out Monday before Dean was expected to slam into Mexico’s Caribbean coast.

read more HERE

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Already packing devastating power and expected to intensify further, Hurricane Dean began battering the south coasts of Haiti and the Dominican Republic on Saturday with howling winds and heavy rains as it churned northwest through the Caribbean.

Haitian authorities issued an alert for coastal communities where thousands of people live in flimsy shacks. All flights from the capital, Port-au-Prince, were canceled on Saturday and small boats were prohibited from leaving shore, the country’s disaster management agency said.

Elsewhere, alarmed tourists jammed Caribbean airports for flights out of Hurricane Dean’s path. In Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, an 11-year-old boy was killed by flying debris while watching large waves strike an oceanfront boulevard, the Dominican emergency operations center reported.

Dean was forecast to thrash Jamaica with 160 mph winds, or Category 5 intensity, up to 20 inches of rain, storm surge and large battering waves, with the onslaught beginning Sunday morning. The system, with hurricane-force winds extending 70 miles from its core, was to be directly over the small island nation by Sunday afternoon.

Latest coordinates and tracking maps here

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