Hanna, Ike and Josephine. Hurricanes of the Week

Thanks for those Edgar.... oooof.... the Gulf Coast is gonna be hit with IKE...



tell me please.... where Hanna starts heading off East again and growing... what happens then...?

(what I know about hurricanes can be written on a postage stamp... a little one...)

Hannah could go over water and land alternately all the way up the coast of the USA and beyond. How much wind it can muster during those changes, I have no knowledge on which to base guesses.

Movement NNE at 24 mph. That's a very good thing.

Izzie -- Hanna isn't expected to grow as it heads east. The circles get bigger because they are forecasting the expected path and the certainty of the exact path is less the further out you go. Hanna isn't expected to get stronger than a tropical storm as indicated by the color (green) of the centers of the circles.

Ike's centers were dark pink yesterday as it was forecasted to be heading into the gulf. I like orange (and even red) a whole lot better than pink!

Hey hun... yep, understand the circles... but was wondering whether she heads back out into the water and can then pick up speed and go back around.... (if that makes sense)... or does she just fizzle out. The others seems to hit land and then eventually slow down, but if they head back into water - do they pick up again (I may be being really DOH here....)

They lose strength as they head out over the colder waters of the north Atlantic. Many of them eventually become storms that effect your weather a week or so later.

Aaaaaaaah... thanku hun. How's Charleston doing...? Have you heard from MIL. x

Flooding is now Hanna's biggest threat
The News & Observer by Josh Sharpe
9/6/08

Tropical Storm Hanna's heavy rains have mostly left the Triangle, although the area still remains under a flood warning.
Eastern North Carolina is under a tropical storm wind warning, but the sun is out at many of the state's beaches.

Wake County has received three to five inches of rain since Friday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service in Raleigh.

Walnut Creek has flooded over Rose Lane off Poole Road in southeast Raleigh. A muddy waterfall poured over Rose Lane, trapping families in about 30 houses at the street's dead end. Police went door to door early Saturday offering to evacuate residents, but most declined.

A pair of teens splashed through the running water, which came to their shins.

"That's an extremely bad idea," said Raleigh police officer P.H. Winston, who strung yellow tape across the road and discouraged cars from crossing Walnut Creek. "Raleigh fire trucks wouldn't go through here, and I don't blame them."

In Morrisville, police are investigating an accident at Highway 54. Drivers are urged to avoid the area.

Crabtree Creek, one of Raleigh's most flood-prone waterways, is measuring at 17 feet above normal, and there is water in the back parking lot of Crabtree Valley Mall. Mall officials had closed it as a precautionary measure, and the mall has already opened for the day.

Some streets in Raleigh were closed this morning by flooding, including Avent Ferry Road at Trailwood, Hillsborough Street at Chapel Hill Road, and Western Boulevard at Pullen Road, said Capt. A.C. Davis of the Raleigh police.

Durham officials are dealing with downed trees. Durham police have blocked off part of North Driver Street because of a tree down on a power line.

Durham police are redirecting traffic around a downed tree crossing both lanes of Guess Road near Terry Road.

In Chapel Hill, Bolin Creek has flooded, causing trouble for residents in nearby Brookwood Apartments. Police went door-to-door this morning, telling residents to move their cars.

Angela Felion, 23, who lives in the apartments, waded through knee-deep water to get to work at nearby University Mall this morning. But when she arrived, the mall was closed because it has no power. A sign on the door says power should be restored by noon.

Pamela Beulah, 48, who lives in a ground-floor apartment, watched the water creep up to her door.

"It would be so beautiful if it weren't for the flooding," she said of the creek. "It's so tropical. This is as close as I'll get to Maui."

Jordan High School's cross country team went on a 10-mile practice run this morning in Chapel Hill. Six team members ran near Bolin Creek today -- sometimes in thigh-deep water. The boys stopped their run briefly to push a Buick out of the flood waters.

"Our coach told us to go on a mud run," said team member Willsch Lotterei, 16.

All hurricane watches have been discontinued, but a high wind warning is in effect until 4 p.m. for the Triangle and points east. Wind up to 45 mph is possible this morning in Wake County, the weather service says. The strongest gusts in the Triangle have reached 24 mph, Scott Sharp, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

Raleigh-Durham International Airport is open, but about 25 flights, mostly departures, have been canceled, said airport spokesman Andrew Sawyer.

As of 9:30, Sawyer said things are improving from a flight standpoint. He still suggests passengers check with the airline before leaving for the airport.

No injuries have been reported from the storm, and residents are still urged to use caution.

With the possibility of flash floods, Wake County officials have urged people to stay off the roads and declared a state of emergency, establishing the authority for towns and the county to share emergency resources. State officials said they are closely monitoring the Tar and Neuse Rivers -- most like to flood as all this water starts to move downstream.

And as always with tropical storms, tornadoes are also still possible.

(A great deal of the UK is flooded right now... We had it yesterday, North England has it now. Just so very sad for many many people.)

Hope that the Eastern A2Kers will check in soon.

nope, not a word. Mr B left a message with his sister but we haven't heard back yet.

Do you think if we turned back the clock to June, we could get some sunshine?

BBB

I called my North Carolina friend this morning, but no answer yet. She said yesterday that she would call me if they had to evacuate.

BBB

Just heard from my friend: "We survived Hanna and will be missed by Ike. We're now cleaning up the slight damage we suffered. All in all, we were lucky because at 11:00 a tornado watch was listed for Brunswick County where we live."

BBB

Well, I slept like a baby through the whole thing. No damage. Minimal (upper 20's) wind. Some flooding in low areas, but that happens with most serious rainfall at the same places. Looks like LionTamer had more wind (38mph last I checked) and he's further west in Durham/Chapel Hill area. RAleigh seemed tpo stay in a "pocket" between the eye and outer bands.

I haven't checked the clubhouse or property where I work. The Neuse river runs just behind us about 50-100 yards depending on section of the neighborhood, but no reports of flooding yet. The Neuse is controlled just at the beginning of the neighborhood by a dam, so probably no damage from Hanna at all to report from here.

Hang on to your hats up north. Wouldn't want any Red Sox caps showing up in NYC.

Glad to hear it Squinney. Let's hope everyone keeps reporting back with good news as the week goes on.

Phew.

Oh, and my sister at Oak Island faired well also. Anyone down in that lower North Myrtle / Wilmington area should be fine.

Engineer?

By MATT SEDENSKY " 43 minutes ago

MIAMI (AP) " For those who live in its path, hurricane season stirs up anxiety even before devastating winds and rains hit land.

And for Suzanne Bonner, that means the days of blissfully lying in bed and listening to the rain no longer exist. Instead, alarms sound at 5 a.m. so she can check the latest forecast. She turns to the Weather Channel instead of watching a tennis match. And the first spot on her speed dial is reserved for a contractor, not her husband.

While there's always a certain nonchalance among those who call islands and coastal lands their home, it is different for those who have lived through devastation " and fear that tragedy is again on its way.

"I, like everybody else, would get excited about it and visualize strapping myself to a tree in the winds," 62-year-old Bonner said. "It's not until you go through a major hurricane like Andrew and you realize the severity of it and that it's not a joke. You're never the same after that. You never look at rain the same."

It was 1992's Hurricane Andrew that destroyed her dream home and changed her life. Then, 13 years later, Hurricane Wilma damaged it all over again. In between and since, there have been countless storm warnings that kick up her anxiety.

It's a story heard all along the Gulf Coast and in the Caribbean, the prime targets for hurricanes.

In Fort Lauderdale, at the Anxiety Treatment Center at Nova Southeastern University, patients have been mentioning fears about Hurricane Ike more than in storms of years past.

"People are very anxious and this uncertainty of what's going to happen actually causes them to feel worse," said Craig Marker, a psychologist there. "With all the false alarms, I would expect that people would think of this as another false alarm. But it's almost like they feel an expectation it's about to come again."

It's toughest on those who've been through disaster before.

Lauren Bronleewe grew up in Tampa and always thought of hurricanes as holidays. Some of the best parties she attended in high school were when a storm was looming.

But when Hurricane Katrina struck three years ago, Bronleewe was living in New Orleans, a student at Tulane University. It changed her viewpoint forever.

"I can guarantee that I'll never attend another hurricane party for the rest of my life," she said.

In the Dominican Republic, 67-year-old Santo Domingo resident Juan Cepeda said he began respecting the strength of storms after he was first affected by one about 20 years ago.

"My house was flooded, all my clothes were wet, the TV was ruined, it was a disaster," he said. "It's traumatic to live with that smell of mud for two months."

In the Bahamas, Randy Forbes, a 33-year-old chauffeur, said he remembers seeing buildings without roofs and widespread flooding after Hurricane Floyd passed near Nassau in 1999.

"The destruction makes me not want to be here," he said.

But others have become so accustomed to storms, the fear has dulled.

Hurricane Gustav last month triggered a landslide that nearly crushed the home of 58-year-old Easton Ellis in Jack's Hill, Jamaica. But he stayed calm, having fortified the house and stocked up on food and water. "I'm not really scared," he said, "because I have seen so much of them."

Douglas Jones, a 30-year-old insurance broker from Paget, Bermuda, said there's a lot of complacence as storms approach. "Once we have battened down, we tend to sit back, relax and get drunk," he said.

Ann Sloan Devlin, a psychology professor at Connecticut College, said many people just don't believe they can become a victim again.

"It's kind of the flip side of the reason people continue to play a given slot machine " it has to pay off after so many pulls," she said. "We are not often the most rational when it comes to assessing risk."

As for Bonner, you can count on her continuing to rise early to get the latest storm news. She can't help feeling stressed. And even if the forecast shows the storm veering further south, she can't forget what she's been through before.

"It changes your life," she said. "It changes the way you do things."

Associated Press writers Ramon Almanzar, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; Mike Melia in Nassau, Bahamas; Sam Strangeways in Hamilton, Bermuda; Vivian Tyson in Providenciales, Turks and Caicos; and Howard Campbell in Kingston, Jamaica, contributed to this report.

SIL checked in saying they "had some rain". All is well.

2.5 inches of rain at my house, starting @ 6 yesterday evening and ending around noon today. Some flooding. There was little wind, so trees in ground already soaked by the 6" from Faye, didn't topple and take out power lines.
Hoping for the best for yall in PA and into the rest of NE.