Hurricane Anniversaries

This week marks a week of grim hurricane anniversaries. Five years ago, Hurricane Katrina formed, and most of us remember the rest. Down here in South Florida, many of us suffered a fair amount of damage from that category 1 storm. At my house, we had a huge ficus tree before the storm; it stretched across the whole back fence. It rained all day as Katrina approached, and the leafy branches drooped lower and lower. And then, about 4 in the afternoon, we heard this enormous creak and the whole tree tipped over.

Luckily, it didn't crush the house. We saw the enormous power of that tree though. It smushed a shed of ours. Maybe I can find a picture and post it in time for the anniversary of that storm's South Florida landfall (August 25).

This is also the week that Hurricane Andrew roared into Miami (August 24). We had just moved to Charleston, SC, so we kept track of the hurricane's early progress. My main memory of that storm is the little children who came to stay with our next door neighbors. We played softball with them in our front yard, and they talked about living in Homestead and how they would go home soon. They lived in our neighborhood until Christmas.

Happily right now, the Atlantic has only one disturbance, and I predict it will arc away from land. Unfortunately, historically, the time from mid-August until early October is the busiest for hurricanes. Here's hoping the season continues to be quiet and calm.