Fritchie and others in the south

[obseq]

You all hanging in there?

I just read the stories of Ivan heading through your area.


Be safe!

[chaz-abstracts]

AS some of you know I have a place in Grenada that's where I go for the winter,the Island is devistated we lost all our trees 45' Royal Palms,part of our roof,50' dock gone/ boat gone/ beach houses gone got somebodys roof
on our beach tore all our beach palm trees out,but nobody got killed that I know yet,so that is a blessing it will take 5 to 10 years for Grenada to come back from this.Check out stormcarib.com go to Ivan and click on things that are for Grenada and there are pictures,it's so bad! And now they lotting all over the island I heard that the US may go in to help!I can't get down there
so I will just wait my prayers are with everybody in it's way.God Bless

[fritchie]

Thanks for everyone's consideration, and my heart goes out to chaz-abstracts. A local family had a daughter in Med School on Grenada, and managed to get help through the U. S. Government to get her and a few more out just before the worst. We have seen many video clips of the devastation, and it was severe.

I’ve been watching Ivan since it approached the Windward Islands almost two weeks ago, because it had almost nowhere to go except near here. Right now, it’s about 90 miles SE of the city, but clearly swinging a bit east of here. Pray for Mobile Bay and vicinity. They seem to be in the area of landfall. We seem more or less to have escaped, but the closest will be about midnight, with up to 50 mph or so winds expected.

[JAZ]

Good luck, Fritchie. I too have been watching the news and wondering about you guys down in the low areas. The commentators here make it sould like it willb e terrible and I'm hoping they're just being alarmist. NPR had lots of interviews with people who are evacuating.
I hope everything is okay with you. And so sorry to hear about Chaz-Abstracts's difficulties. Somehow it makes our snow storms seem mild in comparison. We may get buried sometimes but it doesn't destroy everything in sight like those hurricanes can.

[chaz-abstracts]

Hiya,Fritchie glad to hear all is well in your location,amazing how ones life
can change in the course of one day from mother nature seems the worst is over but now comes Jeanne Good Luck to All

[fritchie]

I saw on the news earlier today that Ivan hit Gulf Shores, Ala., a coastal resort just east of Mobile. Mobile, thankfully, with many more people, was largely untouched. (Hurricanes are much worse to the east of the center than to the west. That’s why N. O., Mobile, and all the Miss. coastal communities came through OK.)

A TV reporter showed the scene some 3/4 mile or so in from the beach, all covered with water and debris. This was the reach of the hurricane “tidal surge” of ten feet or so. Later, however, TV showed a survey of the beachfront itself, and most large buildings were intact though with tiles ripped from the walls. Many midsize to small structures were badly damaged.

Overall, quite a bit of monetary damage, but “only” 20 to 30 deaths, probably. About 5 of these were from a tornado spawned by Ivan some 15 hours before it hit the coast. Thanks for everyone’s wishes and concern.