I was on a cruise 3 months before Ike out of Galveston. Sure is sad to see the devastation of somewhere you had just been.

Fouz, you better bring a whole bunch of patience with you heading north. And you may want to see if you can stay a couple extra days before you head back.

Florida ('92) as a kid.

1985 Hurricane Bob. Boy Scout National Jamboree, Fort AP Hill Virginia..tents and hurricanes do not agree...

I was 5 when Hurricane Betsy hit Alexandria, La.

We lived in an ancient pecan orchard back in the day. It took out my double decker tree house that was in a huge Stuart pecan tree and flung my trampoline into the soybean field out back.

Been through a few. I remember faintly Audrey which wiped out Cameron, La. and killed around 450-600. We evacuated from Port Neches to Beaumont. Carla which hit south of Galveston wasn't horrible on us just north of Sabine Lake but I remmeber getting a new roof out of it.

Mostly for the upper coast things were quiet until Alicia in 1983. It was a Cat III. We got rain even though it hit Galveston dead on there was just minor wind for us. Then came Rita.

Having lived on the Gulf Coast over 2/3 of my life I wasn't that concerned. I did the usual though and stocked up on fuel and canned/dry foods. I have 2 generators ... one for my well and a larger one for the house.

Now, I live 70 miles north of the coast and 45 miles north of Beaumont so my thinking was "I'm far enough inland that it'll be fine here ... very wrong thinking. Our family went over to a widow neighbor's house (large log and stone structure). We had a few bottles of wine and went to bed around 11PM just as the wind was getting strong. Storm blew all night long and only dozed. Around 2AM here patio was ripped off and blasted across the roof ... I went into the attic and all looked sound. I was awake at dawn but the wind was still howling I'd guess around 50mph gusts and sustained 35. When it got light enough I tried to get to my house but all roads were blocked by downed trees. From her gate to mine, a little less than 1/2 mile there were 20 trees over the road. There were 2 large pines across her house but only the tops. My 4x4 was in another neighbor's pasture but it had been riddled by the tin from her barn 100 yards back from my truck. I took her Polaris Sportsman and struggled through the woods to within a 1/4 mile of my house and went the rest of the way on foot. Leaf and limb litter was about a foot deep . My house did well, a few shingles gone but no trees on it.

We ended up being out of power 18 days and a crew from N. Carolina were the ones that got us back on grid power. Neighbors all got together with tractors and chainsaws and cut some of the roads out to the highway in about 4-5 hours ... 6 miles. It was hot. I had to go to work on day 3 post hurricane, don't know why though as there were only 16 patients left in the hospital, and worked 3 on 3 off and slept in the hospital ... lotta hanky panky going on during these shifts/off shifts. Our hospital had 3 large 18 wheeler type generators supplying power (Army?) as our back-up generators wouldn't even run the A/C.

Rita was supposedly a Cat III at landfall but I don't know why they downgraded it afterward ... it set all kinds of records for barometric pressures and was a Cat V only a day out. The airport about 5 miles north of me clocked sustained winds at 103 and another wind gauge in Woodville broke at 126. The eye essentially went up the Neches River about 20 miles east of us. I remember going down US 69 south of Woodville where there was a several hundred acre mature pine stand and about a third of the trunks were snapped ... usually about 20-30 feet up. I lost roughly 25% of my timber, many multi hundred year old oaks. Trees were in full canopy so they caught the brunt of the wind.

Ike was not near as bad at my house, mostly limbs broken and only out of power 8 days . Bt then we were pros at living on generator power. But, we (our whole family was invited as the family of an employee) evacuated to my wife's hospital in Livingston and of course the eye of Ike went right over Lake Livingston.

If I never see another tropical storm it'll be too soon.

Last hurricane I was in, I made the news.

more than I wish. Lived in Bridge City during Ike and decided to evacuate at the last minute. Thank God I did. Couldn't get back to my house for a few days when the water finally went down and lost everything. Riding mower was upside down on top of wife's car in the garage and about a foot of mud covered everything in the house. Water line on the walls was 6'6".

Went through Betsy in 65 in NOLA federal building.

Was living in Georgia when Camille went through in '69. Cat 5. We didn't take a direct hit but 258 souls perished before it was all over.

Been through a few, lived in Corpus for a long time. Lived in pearland and road out Ike, it made me pucker that's for sure.

Hurricains, tornadoes neither are any good

Ike and Rita. Can't remember which one, but one of them came through while the Katrina evacuees were still here. I like a good hurricane, but the house I'm in now has too many trees for comfort.

Tierra del Fuego. Beufort Force was off the charts.

Our Danish captain logged seas at 45-60ft, wind at 90 knots.
The ship was three quarter seas, 1/2 throttle with sea anchor out
making 1 1/2 knots. We bounced around for three days. The cook
could not make anything in the galley but a big pot of soup.

Soup ?

It was the funniest thing I have ever seen watching the guys try to down a bowl
of soup without spilling it !! It got real interesting when the tv came loose from
its overhead brackets and started bouncing around the galley.

We had delayed our cruise and stayed in port until we thought it had passed.
When Landsat and Nasa satellite data informed us it was safe to go out, we preceeded.
Two days later, it hit us.

This was right before the Argentines invaded the Falklands, in April of 1982. Our seismic data that, by contract
Exxon shared with the Argentine government, was a big reason why. This is not the way it was written in the history books !

Nut

Nope - The Rawlinson's apparently prefer Tornados...been through two of those.

Been through many. Worst one for me was when stationed at Hurlburt Field in Florida. The eye of Opal went directly over our house.