Wow Karen quite surreal and sad at the same time. I am watching the new now and it is showing everything that happened in N.Y, It's unbelievable and quite a mess. 33 people passed away there. I am happy you are ok and that were able to get out of harms ways. hopefully you'll be back for your plants to welcome you home soon and to quilting again. Unfathonable is what it all is. My neighbors tree are lost and electricity is out all over, but certainly not as bad as many folks. Thunderstorms galore and winds that could of knocked many more trees down if they had bee as green as they were last year at this time. Thank goodness for our early fall and many bare trees. The beaches are covered here and and you can no longer stand on them The waves were still huge today. I managed to spare all my plants but a few of my jades. They took a good tumble. What's up with these massive storms lately doing weird things and earthquakes? Mike

Hey Andrew! Are you back fr good now? I hope so. You have been missed buddy! Congrats on your win from Four Winds! I hope you love your new tree. they are sending me a new Oro this week! Yahoo. I have the mix and fertilizers all ready to go. It was hard to stay indoors Andrew. I was hopping around out there all morning lifting plants up and making sure I didn't loose anything to the neighbors up the street with all this wind.lol At least the rain is warm and fun to step into. I know I should of brought my plants inside, but I wanted them all to get drenched with this much needed rain. They are all looking so nice, except the one lying on the ground of course.lol Yes Patty: Best wished to your Daughter from here too! Mike

Well said minibim. I never take these storms lightely but I seem to have developed a 6th sense as to whether they are going to be bad or much to nothing. I am so used to afternoon thunderstorms where we sometmes have microburst and wind gusts in excess of 50 mph. I have been through so many storns and even sat through one in a rente mustang. My mother and I had gone to a football game in New Orleans and hurrican Helana had been fickle and was running up and down the coast. We enjoyed the game and spent some time in the French Quarter when we heard that hurrican Helena was headed straight towards Slidell where were wre staying. We were in an interior room and would have been safer staying there but my Mom wanted to get out of town. We goton I-10 and headed home. The rain got worse and worse and finally it got to a point where I could barely see the road and the wind was pushing the car around. The radio person stated that the hurricane was coming ashore between Biloxi and Gulfport. I looked up and saw the road sign that said Gilfport next three exits. We sat the fist part of the storm under I-10 next to a giy in a VW. I was never so happy as when this big semi pulled up behind us. The both decided to turn around and face the other direction and they told me to make sure the gust was not coming when we made the turn or it would flip the car. We were having 160 mph gusts. They left me furing the eye so I got back on the interstate and I was going to take the interstate up north. There was a semi flipped on its side and another on top of a van. I got down onto the other road and realized that I was going to hit he front wall of the storm. You have never seen anyone back up a ramp so fast in your life. We got to the next exit just as the storm hit again and took shelter under the roof of a convenience stor with three oil changing pits, etc. The building was between us and the ocean. I looked over and saw the gas pump handled blowing in the wind and hoped they had cut the gas to the pumps off. I got out and ran around and took pictures of the wind blowing sideways until I saw a tornado coming that lifted the roof off of the gas station half a block away. My mother is now wishing we were back at the hotel. After the storm passed we headed towards home and saw numerpus twisters forming and still do not know how we missed geting sucked up into one that passed right over us and touched down on the other side of the road. I knowthe angels had their protective wings over us. I know the power of these storms and I respect them, but I have learned not to stress out over them. If thre seems to be a truly bad one heading our way I pack Lee up and we head out of town. Disney does make us come in sometimes when we should not be on the roads as the govrnor asks but it is our job and we do have guests to tend to and take care of. Disney has rideout teams that take care of th park and guests when things get really bad and they also take care of some of the cast members who have nowhere to go. They let me stay in one of the resorts for $8 a night when Charley came through. So I watch and wait and then make decisions. The truly bad storms are generally predictable though we have had several that were fast and deadly. Lee's idiot children refuse to leave Key West as they say they are protected by an angel. They even drove down the road during the eye of a storm when you had to guess where the road was. So it is appropriate to do the basics and have that kit ready 365 as hurricanes are not out only disasters here. We alo sit on an earthquake plate and I have experienced two small tremors. We have an inactive volcano in the north Florida area that is so small that no one can locate it anymore and we have lightening, tornadoes, microbust and nasty thunderstorms. That is the price we pay for living in paradise. I hope everyone is okay and I will start a chech in thread. Linda

There are always idiots like that in these hurricanes. I haven't been watching TOO much local news because it can really get to be too much. But I was listening to a local TV station a couple of hours ago and apparently there has already been some major flooding in Galveston, Channelview, and some other low lying areas near the gulf and Galveston Bay. That was as of 6 this morning. A lot of people who THOUGHT they would ride it out were evacuating this morning. And some people were carrying stuff out of their house into their cars by wading through a couple of feet of water. You have to understand, the last major hurricane to hit Houston was in 1983. That was 25 years ago. And every time one of these storms hits the gulf, we are inundated with predictions of where it might hit for at least a week in advance. And so many times they are wrong - including this time. So, after so many "near misses" and especially after Rita 3 years ago when many evacuated and then it went east, and after Tropical Storm Eduard just about a month ago where many people evacuated, people just get immune. It's not easy to be told to evacuate over and over again and then you'd have been better off staying. It's nobody's fault, because there really is no way of REALLY knowing where it's going to hit that far in advance. But by the time it really does hit, well, it sort of becomes like the boy who cried wolf. Of course there are some who never listen as well. Anyway. It's still pretty quiet here at my house. I don't expect to see much before the wee hours of the morning. Hope Karen and Jim and Brenda check in soon!