Waiting for Cristobal

Updated: explanation of hurricane names

Tomorrow is a very important day for me. It’s June 1 ~ the beginning of the 2008 Hurricane Season.

When my family moved to the Gulf Coast of Florida in 1995, we arrived only a few weeks after Hurricane Erin had hit in the area, and less than two months before Hurricane Opal. Our first home was a condo on Okaloosa Island, a perk from Hubs’ new job until we found a house to buy. We were right on the beach  ~ very nice ~ in hindsight, we were fortunate to find a house when we did.

We moved into our new home, the same one we live in today, in mid-September. As October approached, we started paying close attention to the weather forecasts. By Oct. 3, Hurricane Opal was a full blown storm and making her way into the Gulf of Mexico on a bull’s eye track toward our little stretch of beach.

As we packed valuables and boarded up our windows, I got more and more anxious. I had never experienced anything even close to the panic I felt knowing that this storm, this massive vortex of rain and wind was bearing down on us.

At 6 a.m. on Oct. 4, we piled into one car with only one bag of clothes each, and evacuated from our home, three weeks after moving in, and on my 33rd birthday. It would be four long days before I knew if I had a home to come back to, if it was still in one piece.

We kept the radio tuned to weather reports and tried to keep track of where the storm was and where it was predicted to make landfall. Driving north, the Florida Highway Patrol eventually closed the main highway to southbound traffic, opening all four lanes to cars going north. The same was done on Interstate 65 driving into Alabama. No cars were allowed any further south than Montgomery. A trip that normally took us seven hours to make, took us more than 12. The Interstate from Florida north was a parking lot.

Our next door neighbors, who left less than a hour behind us, never made it out of Florida. We continued to Chattanooga, TN where my mother lived at the time. All motels south of there were filled with evacuees.

Listening to weather reports only made the exodus worse. The further away we managed to creep, the more massive the storm grew. Shortly before landfall, Hurricane Opal had reach Cat 5 status, the most powerful of storms.

To get a little perspective, hurricanes are ranked from a Category 1 to 5, based on maximum sustained winds.

Category 1 – 74-95 mph

Category 2 – 96-110 mph

Category 3 – 111-130 mph

Category 4 – 131-155 mph

Category 5 – 156 mph and Up

When Opal finally made landfall, she was downgraded to a Cat 4 storm, but still slammed into shore at 150 mph. By the time she was finished, her 30-foot storm surges tore out a five-mile section of Highway 98 between Destin and Fort Walton Beach, dumped four feet of sand on Okaloosa Island filling the ground floor of the condo where we first stayed, and leveled dunes that had stood as high and wide as two-story houses.

Our neighborhood, located on the leeward side of Choctawhatchee Bay, was without power for over two weeks. Our kids and I stayed with my parents during that time, but Hubs came back, loaded with bags of ice and food he could cook on a propane grill.

Houses along our street came through the storm sort of hit and miss. One neighbor just two houses down the street came back to find the top of a tree sticking out of his living room. Our neighbor across the street, the one who had just replace his roof after losing it in Hurricane Erin, lost the new one too as Opal striped off every single shingle.

We had 13 trees in our front and back yards. Half were down and the other half were left hanging at odd angles, nearly torn from the ground ~ twisted like pipe cleaners. Among them all, none hit our house. One sky light was cracked and we lost a few shingles, but we came through the storm basically whole.

Since that storm, we have evacuated two other times ~ Dennis and Ivan ~ and rode out one Cat 3 storm, Georges in 1998 ~ not a bad record for 13 years. When a storm is forecast to be headed our way, we have the prep process down to a finely choreographed dance. We have numbered plywood panels that are hammered into place over Bay facing windows. We have sedatives for the pets, this helps them travel more comfortably if we do evacuate. We fill the bathtub in case we run out of potable water. We also make sure we have a spare tank of gas for the grill and plenty of non-perishable food in case we lose electricity.

At the first indication a storm is headed toward us, we start emptying the freezer. If we have to evacuate, we wrap the frig and freezer in heavy blankets for extra insulation. There is not much worse than a frig full of spoiled food after being without power for several days.

Living in a hurricane prone area is an adventure, and so far we have been extremely lucky. We have not been flooded, even though water has reached the front door. We have not had any major structural damage and no was has suffered any injuries.

The 2007 hurricane season was a remarkably gentle year for the Florida Gulf Coast. This season, who knows. We may be due for another big storm. The season runs from June 1 to November 30 – a lot can happen in six months.

 

Hurricane names for 2008

In response to a question from Maria: The National Hurricane Center uses six lists of 21 names, alternating male and female names that rotate every seven years. A name on these lists is retired if it is associated with a storm that results in catastrophic lost of life or property damage. In 2005, one of the worst storm seasons on record, five names were retired – Dennis, Katrina, Rita, Stan and Wilma. Opal is also a retired hurricane name.

Arthur 
Bertha
Cristobal
Dolly
Edouard
Fay
Gustav
Hanna
Ike
Josephine
Kyle
Laura
Marco
Nana
Omar
Paloma
Rene
Sally
Teddy
Vicky
Wilfred