I have told only our part of the Hurricane Ivan experience. But our town was hit and hit hard. People died. Homes were demolished. Our water plant and power plant both sustained major damage. The utilities would be out for weeks. Many roads were impassable and the interstate bridge was wiped out, making it hard for help to get to us. Here are some images from the aftermath.
You need to click on this one to see it better. This is the interstate bridge. For reasons we will never know, a truck driver was on the bridge during the storm. You can see the bed of the truck still on the bridge…the cab fell into the water when that portion of the bridge collapsed. As the water rose and the giant waves swelled it picked up entire portions of the bridge and just knocked them off the pilings. It was eerie.
Another view. Here is a link to some pics, I will post a few here, but to see more you can go to the link.
This a fan from our civic center, it landed on top of that car!
Long lines for gas. With no power gas pumps don’t work, so only a few stations who had generators were even open. Plus, as the few ran out of gas no trucks could get through to refill tanks.
The beach destruction was pretty bad. Here is a destroyed house and buried car. Pretty white sand, isn’t it?
There was a lot of destruction folks. Lots of horror stories of people trapped in their homes, sitting in attics to avoid the floods below. You may think, “Well why didn’t they evacuate?” I’m not making excuses, but the way Ivan made landfall, even the protected waterways experienced storm surge, so areas that had never flooded before flooded this time. There were many deaths, a 7yo girl who died when a tree fell on her house, a 73yo woman who drowned as she and her daughter tried to go for help (if you watch the Weather Channel they featured these people’s story on Storm Stories.) Many more people died after the storm while cleaning up debris or by carbon monoxide from the generators. So sad.
Well, that’s it. That’s my Hurricane Ivan story and I’m stickin’ to it. ;) Now back to our regular broadcasting. Thank you.
You are making me very glad I have never experienced a hurricane!
ReplyDeleteThe yellow is a little light on the blog, but still readable. Did you do the design yourself?
ReplyDeleteI'd like to redo my blog in a three column design like this, but don't have time to do the research to create it lately.
Oh my! I remember being grateful that the hurricane was hitting up there, I think we had already been through 3 of Florida's 4 Hurricanes that year! I did say in a letter to my husband who is in basic training in Georgia at the time that I did feel so sorry for the folks there since it was a cat 4 storm! They even braced for it up there too.
ReplyDeleteI am so thankful we live away from the coast now, I have been through hurricanes in both Texas and Florida and I am done with all that! I am still glad to hear your baby didn't come until after the storm and when you had power! What memories!!
Sounds like a really rough time. Glad you made it through ok.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your story, I kept checking back for the ending. I'm so glad you guys stayed safe, thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteAngela