Katrina was the 12th hurricane herr und frau storch have experienced. while Katrina was not a very powerful storm prior to landfall on the eastern florida shore it has certainly become a threat now.
when Katrina arrived in miami/ft. lauderdale the highest wind gusts were 92mph currently Katrina is attaining wind gusts up 180mph.
I personally enjoy hurricanes and took some nice photos outside by the lake while in the midst of the tempest. I was hoping to post these photos on the squad bbs but perhaps I'll post them here. The photos show royal palm trees with fronds all blowing to one side and the surface of the lake all in whitecaps. we suffered seven fatalities due to the storm here in south florida. these fatalities were totally preventable, they were people who were out during the storm doing stupid things like taking photos of palm trees and whitecaps on the lakes.
we had a partially constructed overpass collapse onto a major freeway. fortuituosly no one was killed. it will be interesting to read about this event in the coming months. the contractor is a brasilian construction company. one should wonder why we are giving our business to a contractor from a country that has worse roads than italy.
we are still without power here. currently there are over one million homes in the tri county area without power. I am able to annoy you guys in the CT because I'm a careful and thoughtful planner aside from being a veteran hurricane type dude. we own two generators and are able to provide power to all our stuff except the airconditioners or anything requiring 220VAC. we are cooking on our grill outside and taking cold showers many times daily. today I need to go out and hunt down 20 gallons of gasoline and 20 gallons of diesel or else tomorrow my neighbors will start cheering. I'm the only blue collar guy in the neighborhood so all the attorneys have been coming by and admiring my personal powerplants. while we have been able to share power with our immediate neighbors to run their fridges the rest of the community is basically tossing out food.
I wanted to share some of these things with you guys as most folks aren't familiar with hurricanes. I believe them to be the most benign of the natural forces but will withhold judgement until after this beast makes landfall again in the gulf states.