Are you having to evacuate? Did you already have to? Is your house flooding? Are you housing someone who had to evacuate?

How has Floyd affected your life?

-- Anonymous, September 16, 1999

Answers

I'm very lucky here in Atlanta to be unaffected. We could have used some rain, but a little rain here isn't worth what the storm can do to the shore areas. My brain has a hard time fathoming the size of these storms. How can they sustain themselves over such a vast area? It's mind boggling. I have friends in Delaware that I can't seem to get hold of. I'm hoping they are okay and just sought shelter elsewhere til Floyd blew over. My heart goes out to those who were harmed by the storms. It's easy for me to breathe a sigh of relief that nothing happened here, but I know so many people's lives have been turned upside down as a result of the weather, and they must have felt so helpless. I normally wish daily that I lived on the ocean, but not this week. Good luck to everyone!

-- Anonymous, September 16, 1999

I'm in Boston, which is due to have a run-in with Floyd tonight. It's been raining since last night, and now the wind is picking up. I'm sitting here at work watching the rain fall sideways. My cat is freaking out -- the air is all heavy and feels charged.

As an aside, is it just me, or is Floyd the least menacing name in the world?

-- Anonymous, September 16, 1999

Mary Ellen. I was thinking the same thing. One of my favorite people in the world was a big teddy bear of a man named Floyd.

Also the hurricane coming up behind Floyd is named Gert. Another ferocious name.

-- Anonymous, September 16, 1999

I live in Florida, very close to the coast where Floyd barely missed us.

If you're interested, I wrote about it here.

-- Anonymous, September 16, 1999

my mom and sister at home in baltimore missed school today (and probably tomorrow, too) because of floyd. but we don't have hurricanes of any sort in minnesota, so i'm living by proxy and reading www.storm99.com a lot.

i love hurricanes. but only to watch. damage isn't funny.

oh, and floyd wiped out the walkway from our beachhouse to the ocean again. well, floyd only did it once, but bertha did, and fran did, and dennis took a couple of steps off the bottom ...

-- Anonymous, September 16, 1999

Floyd came through Richmond this morning and last night, crazy winds and rain. My University was closed today some silly (probably bored) boys outside my dorm, sat in a shopping cart, set up a large sheet like a sail, and tried to use the 45mph winds to propell them down the street. It worked.

-- Anonymous, September 16, 1999

I think the names for storms are getting wimpier and wimpier because all the good, tough-sounding names were used up years ago. If the wind gets past 20mph, someone names it, so we have managed to fly through the alphabet over and over really quickly. I'm guessing there will eventually be a Hurricane Santa, once all the other "S" names are taken.

-- Anonymous, September 16, 1999

Floyd's tail has cancelled our school's annual weekend camping trip, much to the relief of EVERYONE.. YAY!!!!

-- Anonymous, September 16, 1999

I was raised right here in North Carolina. We see at least a couple of storm threats every hurricane season, and we take them very seriously. Hurricane tracking and formation was always a science topic in elementary school. Plus, we love our beaches! But now, I go to school with a bunch of people from the north and from western states who've never had to deal with this sort of thing before. They're all underestimating it and saying how they weren't very impressed with Floyd, or saying how dumb we all are here for overreacting to this "nothing." But I've been really scared the past couple of days. Fran hit my house a couple of years ago, and we were without power for at least eight days, and trapped in our neighborhood (by fallenkt2ees) for longer. My boyfriend's car was smashed by a huge oak tree so that no part of it rose more than three feet off the ground. Do you have any idea how sweaty and gross we were after *eight* days without a shower? (Not that showers have a whole heck of a lot to do with electricity, but the bathtubs were all filled with water in case we ran out.) Anyway, this is getting too long, but, all I really wanted to say was, you gotta take those puppies seriously no matter how wimpy their names are.

-- Anonymous, September 16, 1999

Floyd's gone, thank god, but there's still a lot of water and damage. I-64 (which just happens to be the main evacuation route) is closed from flooding. We were without power most of yesterday and part of the porch roof got ripped off. All in all, not too bad for us, but nerve wracking just the same. My friend Sara was flooded out, and T evacuated from Savannah up to his parent's house in Virginia Beach and was then evacuated from there! I still haven't been able to get in touch with Liz and Matt (their phone is out). In fact, the only reason I'm writing this here, now, is because the College of William & Mary is CLOSED today and I can't get to work.

Love this weather... really...

-- Anonymous, September 17, 1999

Tropical Storm Floyd passed by us in CT last night. Nothing major happened just a lot of flooding.

-- Anonymous, September 17, 1999

I left work early yesterday afternoon due to concerns about driving a Honda Civic over the Newport and Jamestown bridges (both very long and high) with high wind gusts. Got through the storm with no problems at home at all... I had been concerned about water in basement but we did not get the four to eight inches they had been talking about so stayed dry... very windy but never lost power (lights flickered at times and UPS systems on our computers beeped but power stayed on). Beautiful day today! Bright sun, blue skies with clouds, brisk wind, very strong gusts, clean air, gorgeous. My wife and kids have the day off... all schools cancelled Friday classes...

I did get to work late today, had to stop at Dr. office to get stitches out of my toe... had to hold flashlight while she did it because the town of Narragansett had no power this morning... she says wait until Monday or Tuesday before running... (This was cause when I went to get an severely ingrown toenail fixed she noticed a lump under one toe that she did not like and wanted to remove so thus I ended up with stiches and a funny walk for the past week.) The Harvard-Pilgrim-Health 5k is tomorrow in Providence -- I've always wanted to run it but something has always prevented that -- looks like I'll miss it again this year... it is supposed to be an enjoyable race, two or three thousand runners -- oh well, next year...

-- Anonymous, September 17, 1999

Here in Washington DC Floyd hit while I was at work. I totally missed it. We had no power last night but we lit lots of candles and my roommates and I sat around and laughed so hard that my stomach muscles ache today. No real damage here.

-- Anonymous, September 17, 1999

Floyd was anticlimactic here! (Boston, that is.) I was all prepared for a monster storm, and we got some rain. Some wind. A little puddle in the basement, not enough to really worry about. Even my cowardly cat wasn't bothered, and she HATES bad weather of any sort. I'm glad there was no major damage around here, but still...a little drama would have made it interesting.

-- Anonymous, September 17, 1999

i think i got one of the worst.. we were out of electricity for about a day.. and then when we came home from picking up my kitty at the vet's (that's another depressing story by itself..) the electricity was back on. i'm in newport news, and i've lived here for a pretty long time and i've never ever ever seen flooding like this.. the main road was flooded and closed so people were driving past my house (which is at a dead end) over and over and over again trying to find a detour. i should have gone out there to give them directions for 25 cents each.. after the rain stopped and the water level went down to a reasonable level me and my parents drove around to see the damage.. there were so many people just walking around, having quality time with their loved ones while overlooking the carnage and destruction of a natural disaster.. anyway there were a bunch of trees down in people's yards, fences, ROOFS, and there was even one blocking the main entrance to my school (heh heh heh).. which was closed today and yesterday.. a local neighborhood is still flooded today, and because the interstate's still closed the traffic was horrible. i turned the radio on this morning and this is what the announcer said: "ok.. i've been getting a bunch of calls of concern from everyone and i just wanted to inform everyone that the big bright yellow circular thing in the sky.... is the SUN!!!!" at least today was a beautiful and quiet day.. no clouds, wind, or people's generators running..

-- Anonymous, September 17, 1999

I didn't have to evacuate, and the storm was pretty cool to watch, and we didn't have a lot of damage, thank heavens, but we were without power AND phone for about 48 hours, which completely sucked. Two whole days where I couldn't feed my Internet addiction!

-- Anonymous, September 20, 1999

Jersey was hit pretty badly in parts. Of course it wasn't as bad as we had expected it to be but some towns are destroyed. Our *sarcasm* lovely Governor Whitman *end sarcasm* estimated the damage in the millions. We were sent home from work on Thursday at noon; they even shut down production (THIS is HIGHLY unusual for my company). Friday we had the day off as well. A town by the name of Boundbrook was emerged 7 feet under water. The place is a wreck and will most likely be a ghost town now. No one that I know will go back there, ever. My town was flooded by our river but my house is high and dry. Everything's icky looking, covered in born/orange soot and dirt but at least we have our lives and our health and ICK! good thing we don't have chunky water like New York does!!!!!

Oh and guess what else??? THE DROUGHT'S OVER!!! WE can use water again!!

-- Anonymous, September 20, 1999