Sandi: I remember the aftermath of category 5 Hurricane Camille that came up through the Gulf in August 1969. When my husband got out of basic training in February 1970 we drove cross country to California for a two month school he had to attend for the Navy before meeting his squadron in Europe. We left Florida in February 1970 taking Interstate 10 across the SW coast. We were both so stunned at what we viewed that we couldn't even speak. I will have those images in my brain for the rest of my life and that storm is what gave me a very healthy respect for hurricanes. I will never take a major storm for granted! I hear so many folks laughing when hurricane season arrives and passes and they talk about all the media hype saying the weather people are trying to scare us and then they really moan and complain when a season passes and the U.S. has no major storms. If a category 3 or higher storm is ever predicted for this area I will be somewhere north or west, I will not stay put that's for sure. I know people don't want to leave their homes and possessions but to me, life is so much more important than possessions. I will always remember our trip across Interstate 10 from Florida, through Alabama and Mississippi that year. We'd be driving along and all of a sudden see detour signs and we'd reach a spot where the interstate was just big chunks of cement/pavement and we'd detour off to side roads for awhile. I think it was in Mississippi where we had to take a road right along the coast and we saw huge ships and ocean liners (think BIG cruise ships) tossed out of the Gulf of Mexico and across the road laying on their sides like toys ... it was almost like we were dreaming, total disbelief in what we were seeing. We saw so many cement slabs where homes and businesses were totally gone. One vivid memory I have is of a former gas station where only one pump was sitting in the middle of a cement slab ... building gone, everything around it gone, just this weird image of a gas pump sitting in the middle of a vast wasteland because there were no buildings, trees, plants anything for blocks and blocks. We saw many wooden pegs with makeshift signs sticking out of the ground where people had written the address of what used to be there. I also remember the aftermath of category 5 Hurricane Andrew which tore through South Florida in 1992. I've seen the damage a category 1 hurricane can do, the cat 4 & 5 storms are just total devastation.
Geesh ... here I go getting off track again!
