The Sheila Variations

tree hugging sister is riding it out in pensacola. i'll let you know when i know...

Riding it out here in Bush, Sheila. The brunt of it will be east of here but we're expecting tropical storm force wind and rain. It figures to start getting very nasty in a few hours.

Pensacola and Mobile are going to get hammered.

The wind's being getting stronger all day here in Tallahassee, but it's barely even raining at the moment, and of course the landfall's going to be well to the west (thank God). Still nervous, but not as panicked as I was when the track showed it coming right through here.

I hope THS is alright, Mister B: Pensacola's going to get it much harder than here. :-S And hopefully my beloved New Orleans won't be blown away and/or completely flooded.

i hope so too dave. i hope so too.

My Mom and Joe Creedon and another parishoner are at a conference in New Orleans, therefore stuck in a hotel to ride out the hurricane. They have been instructed to put their luggage in the bathtub and bring a pillow and a blanket to the conference hall because it is on a high floor in the hotel. Frankly, I am a bit weirded out . Eek!!!!

They'll be fine, Beth. There will be some inconvenience in New Orleans and some damage but it will be manageable. City officials there are all over it.

i just talked to ths in pensacola. she said it was pretty damn scary overnight when it came ashore, but they made it through fine, and that the 50 mph gusts now seem like nothing...

thanks god

Luggage in the bathtub? I'm from the Midwest, where we have tornados instead of hurricanes. Do bathtubs have high survival rates when going against hurricanes? How are they against tornados? Should I start sitting in the bathtub? Or does it only work with luggage?

I can't tell you how much this idea has confused and intrigued me.

I've lived on the mainland of Galveston Island nearly my entire life and I've seen those idiots surfing DURING a tropical storm!

DeAnna - As a lover of massive surf - I remember staring longingly at these humungous waves crashing into the beach during Hurricane Gloria in the 1980s - I had never seen waves like that in my life - but some sense of SELF-PRESERVATION kept me from doing so!!!

Well, and, do also keep in mind that next to Ivan, Gloria was a mild breeze.

Regarding Bathtubs, I heard of one survivor of a tornado where a Man's wife ended up miles away from the house after it got hit by a tornado. It was an old cast-iron tub.

Probably complete bullsh_t, considering the unlikelihood of it landing face up, but I imagine the story was told because of the amusing possibility of a man's wife, nude, miles from home, falling from the sky in a friggin bathtub.

Sounds like something outta Twister. I dunno why anyone would think that a bathtub would be belpful in a Tornado.