With Cat. 1 (and intensifying) Hermine baring down on us (I live in Tallahassee, Florida - landfall expected in about 5 hours), I've let slip my reading on the forum's various threads. I guess this demonstrates that all 'politics' is local!
So far, 18 mm (7/10ths of an inch, according to my rain gauge) of rain has fallen since this morning (but I expect steady rain into tomorrow - 125-185mm (5-7+") more, according to NOAA forecasts), and high branches are waving just a little bit (hello there - we're getting ready to frighten you out of your socks later tonight). [PS: just now the rainfall intensity has picked up considerably - this is what I expect all night.]
My previous tropical weather experience was with Tropical Storm Fay in 2008 that dropped over 600 mm (24") in my rain gauge over a 7-day period, so the rain event part of this experience shouldn't offer surprises. This is this house's first hurricane, and I've not ever experienced the predicted winds with trees around. (Mt. Washington, New Hampshire and cyclones in the South Pacific offered no possibility of falling trees.)
Our electric power went out about 8 o'clock on Thursday night and I listened to a tree crash through its neighbors around 10:30 pm (the 30"-75cm red oak took several trees with it, as it fell across my driveway) then went to bed. I 'missed' the wind and other night noises that my wife and countless others couldn't sleep through.
My home still does not have electricity. Where I work just got power yesterday (so I've been off since last Thursday afternoon when state offices closed so we could prepare for the storm). I got my home telephone ‘back’ last night. My community has a backup generator on one of the wells, so we have had intermittent water. I bought some ice before the storm, so was fine until we could get out of the neighborhood on Saturday. And we've used 20-30#s (10-15 kg) of ice each day since to cool the refrigerator. Yesterday, my wife went to her brother's home to do some laundry. My step-sons left town for 'the duration' and my daughter moved in with folks who didn't lose power.
I did have ‘fun’ using a chainsaw each of these past five days – trees across driveways (including my own), trees on roofs (I helped two neighbors – two others required a crane which came on Sunday), trees snagged over the community road, trees in drainage ditches, and broken branches, big and small ‘everywhere’.
(I've read only a couple of the items in this thread, and this is my first 'venture' back onto the internet. In fact, other than for Tallahassee, I know just about nothing about what the storm's consequences have been (is it still out there, as had been projected? I can find out!!!), and virtually nothing about any happenings elsewhere in the world.)
P.S. Reading this thread after my Sept. 1 entry: thanks for the concerns expressed!