Woodnymph, you wrote exactly what I've been thinking about for the last day or so. In fact, last night my DH and DS were discussing the book, Isaac's Storm and saying if those along the Texas coast have read it, they will make for high country fast.

I will be praying for those who choose to stay and hoping for the best.
Having had a bit of experience with Hugo back in '89, I can say it is a scary thing. Even though we were one hundred miles from the coast, we received a direct hit of 100+ mph, had a good bit of damage, and were without power for two weeks.

Later, of course, Andrew had us in S.C. counting our blessings and praying for southern Florida.

It does look huge (they all are, but this one particularly so). Here's hoping people can remain safe.

Rumor here is that gas prices are going to soar to $5.00 USD (or more) over the weekend. Prices are creeping up by the hour. Ouch!

I read Isaac's Storm when it was published around the 100th anniversary of the Galveston hurricane of 1900. The book was not as well written as it could have been but the story was incredibly powerful. The deadliest storm in American history.

I am amazed that people once again built houses and businesses on this sandbar. Why do they do it? Of course I hope and pray for everyone's safety but it is crazy to build on a spit of sand in the face of these storms.

BTW, Erik Larson is also the author of The Devil in the White City, which I'm sure a lot of people here have read.

Right now, we are supposed to drinking margaritas on the beach in Playa del Carmen in Mexico. However, due to Ike, all our flights were cancelled so we have had to cancel our holiday. Rats.

And then, to add to this, we had 7.8 inches of rain yesterday in 24 hours (a record for our semi-arid city) which meant schools were cancelled, univs were cancelled and "unessential" staff at the uni (where I work) didnt have to go in. Yahoo -- a free day so I don't have to count this day as vacation.

And the local rain is not from Ike - it's from a tropical storm called Isobel or something. We're too far inland to get much from Ike (thank goodness).

Hope everyone in the path of the hurricane does ok.

liz

Everything here in Tidewater, VA shut down last weekend, due to the arrival of Tropical Storm Hanna, but we only had branches down and messy yards. But I lived through Isabel here, a few years back and it was unforgettable. There were so many trees that came down on homes and cars that it looked like a war zone. There were too few generators, and we were without any power for over 3 weeks! I think our neighborhood still has a sort of PTSD from enduring this huge hurricane that lasted all day and all night. Some folk in areas near water have re-built their homes on stilts. It continues to amaze me, also, how people will continue to re-build right on the shoreline, knowing what will happen eventually. Isabel completely reconfigured our landscape....

It's difficult for those that have never been through even a CAT 1 hurricane to understand what the wind forces are capable of.

All they see is some news crew standing out on the street or beach, talking about how bad it is. It's sort of easy to see why some don't understand how it really is! Pictures of the "rough surf" look a lot like the average summer day.

When will TV learn that as long as the newscasters think it's safe to hang around outside, a lot of people will feel it's safe?

I want to yell at them to get in out of the rain and wind before something sails along and takes their stupid head off.

The History channel did a program about that storm and it looked horrendous. For some reason people seem to think they are immune until it is too late, although in the Issac Storm the people were not warned and the weather people didn't realize the storm was going to be so bad.

I have to relate a little though, I live in California and a couple of months ago when we had all those fires we were on evacuation alert. We had lost our power and I sat thinking, 'ok, what am I going to pack? what should I load in the car?' and other stupid things like that. It was over whelming and I realized what a tragedy it must be for people who loose EVERYTHING. I know it is just 'stuff' but it has so much emotion attached to it.

I've thought about this too. Our chief danger here is earthquakes. They give no warning so the best you can do is build your house to code and cross your fingers, and maybe have a supply of canned goods that would feed you for a week if needed.

But we do sometimes get great fires. Much of California has no rain for 6-8 months of the year. This added to decades of wildfire suppression has built up so much fuel that when fires do start, they burn. Last year we had a mini-fire (about a thousand acres) a couple of miles from my house in the foothills. I was out of town hearing scary stories and was on the phone with my son trying to tell him what to pack (the dog, the dog's food, the filing cabinet and our photo albums). He of course insisted that there was no danger and it turned out he was right. But it made me think. In addition to our emergency food supply, we all ought to have photocopies of our essential documents ready for an emergency evacuation, and a plan of what to pack in the car if given twenty minutes to leave.

I think about this all the time. How I could single-handedly try to save irreplaceable old family photos and letters and other memorabilia in time. And, increasingly, with global warming, it appears that no place in the US is safe from tornadoes or other natural disasters. It has already been a wild year in the US, weather-wise.

This topic makes me wonder.....a bit off topic but, from all the reading you have done, especially historical, do you think it is human nature that we wait until an impending catastrophe before we humans take action? I am thinking, yes. It seems like we live like nothing will happen to us despite warning signs and then are surprised when it happens.

I recall that as a young girl in the 60's there was discussion about pollution, etc and yet we still have this problem. We have been talking about deforestation for decades and yet we still use paper products like there's no tomorrow. Shouldn't the '70's have been an oil wake up call and yet in the 90' we bought SUV's, Hummer's etc.

just wondering...............

Deborah, so true. We are in Western society, waking up too late, IMHO. Pres. J. Carter way back in the 70's was warning of a coming energy crisis down the road. Then, there was Rachel Carson's book, "The Silent Spring", which came out even earlier, I think.It seems to be human nature to be unable to read the warning signs. And remember that Cassandra, the ancient Greek seer was scorned and ridiculed, even though she predicted the Trojan War. Some us are in discussions about these very same issues over at another Garden Web forum, called "Hot Topics." Anyone is welcome to join in.....

Thanks, woodnymph, I'll have to check that out.