I survived my first "real" hurricane. When I moved to Fairhope back in November of 2009, Ida was a thing, but we laughed at the storm. We experienced much worse weather in Nebraska. Over the past two summers, there was never any threat of anything hitting us, but this summer has been very active and back in June, Cristobal hit to the west of Gulf Shores and brought us a nice amount of rain without the destruction. As the summer progressed, there werw other storms in the area, but the National Hurrican Center always did a fantastic job of predicting where they would hit. I was amazed at their accuracy. It looked like either Laura or Marco had the potential to affect my area, but both meandered well to the west, and I began to feel very sorry for Louisiana. When Sally entered the Gulf, it too was proejcted to hit somewhere in Louisiana. By this time, I had total faith in the NHC's forecasts and was not at all concerned. But as the days went on, the storm seemed to inching closer and closer to Gulf Shores. I was still not concerned, though, because Sally was such a slow moving storm that it was forecast to weaken to a tropical storm before making landfall due to it stirring up colder Gulf water and encountering wind sheer and land friction. All I can say is that Sally was a very fickle lady and defied the forecasters at every turn. Not only did she meander some 200 miles east of where she was originally forecast to hit, but she also made landfull (right on top of Gulf Shores at 4:45am on Wedensday, September 16th) as a very strong category 2 hurricane.
Three years ago a tornado formed over my neighborhood in Nebraka and we lost so many trees and limbs. I remember standing in my kitchen and looking out the window at the wind, and as I stared, a tree fell over. It was then that Dan yelled to get into the basement. By the time I rounded up the animals, the threat was past. It didn't occur to me that a tornado was coming through until it was too late. Fortunately, it was a minor F0 that strengthened just a bit to an F1 before disapating, but it scared me enough to never want to experience another one. Sally was very much like that brief moment when I watched the tree fall. It sounded like a locomotive outside my house for hours. I went to bed grateful that it was a weak storm. Little did I know...
I woke up about 5:00am to dead silence. We were in the eye of the hurricane. It was surreal. I walked outside about 6:30 and already my neighbors were out assessing the damage. My next door neighbor to my right had a tree on the roof. Neighbors on the other side lost most of the shingles off the front of their roof. A very large palm tree in the front of a house up the street was split in half horizontally. My back fence had blown down and was under a foot or so of water. And 95% of Baldwin County was without power. After a couple of hours, the wind started to pick up and we were warned that the backside of the storm had yet to come through. Thankfully, once Sally made landfall, the backside of the storm began falling apart, and aside from some wind and a few light showers, the worst was over for me.
Dan wanted to venture out and try to find gas for our generator. Unfortunately, since this storm was forecast to hit well to our west with relatively minor impacts to our area, very few people were prepared for a nearly major hurricane. We sat in a line for nearly a half an hour waiting for a gas pump. We needed to buy oil, but the convenience shop had lines out the door and around the building, so we decided to find another store. Every place that was open had the same issue--lines for days. We were able to borrow a quart of oil from a neighbor, so our generator is functional. It is doubtful that we have enough gas to last until the power comes back, but we are hopeful that more businesses will be open today.
Obviously, I will not be working until at least next week. Ben finally got hired at CSU, and he was supposed to start his new job yesterday. Now that has been pushed back to the 30th. If the electricty comes back on this weekend, I will be able to work on Monday. I am not looking forward to the number of papers in the queue. There were close to 50 left when I left work on Tuesday. Our new writing specialist was supposed to start yesterday too, so now she will be two weeks behind in her training. Also, my and Dan's 30th wedding anniversary was Tuesday. That is one we will never forget.
Speaking of wedding, Dan and I honeymooned on the Carnival Fantasy cruise ship back in September of 1990, just months after she was set to sail, and this past January, we took a cruise out of Mobile on the Fantasy--almonst 30 years after our first one. It was quite a walk down memory lane. Last night Dan told me that the Fantasy is being scrapped. I found it a bit coincidental that our first cruise was one of the first on the brand new Fantasy and our last cruise was one of the last. 2020 has been quite a year.
I will try to post pictures of the damage in my next blog post. I am currently running my laptop on battery and need to end this for now. I appreciate prayers as Gulf Shores and surrounding communities begin to clean up and put lives back together. We were very lucky--our damage was minor, but others were not so lucky. My director lost part of her roof and a wall in her condo collapsed. My supervisor has 6 trees down and she lost her shed and her lawnmower. Most larger cities are under curfews until further notice. We have a relatively long road ahead of us. (BTW, I apologize for any typos. I will clean them up when I have a better internet connection.)
