I'm Home

Meridian turned out to be not such a smart evacuation point. Maybe I would not be thinking that if Hurricane Ivan had hit about 100 miles west of where it actually made landfall. Or maybe I would. Being a hurricane novice, I was not really aware that being on the northeast side of a hurricane is Bad. Meridian had high winds and rain last night. The power went out at 5:00 a.m. A building in the historic area of downtown collapsed. Turns out Ivan's eye, while still a Category One hurricane, passed within about 80 miles of where we were staying.

I phoned Older Son's roommate's parents for details about things here at home. They are neighbors, and they stayed put during the storm. J. (roommate's mom) told me that there were no problems locally at all. While we ate cereal in our hotel room, we listened to Mississippi Public Radio for storm news. When the MEMA folks said people from Hancock County (the county next to my parish) were free to go home, we cancelled our last night at the hotel and started packing.

It was really windy and rainy for the first fifty or sixty miles on the way home. Once again, traffic was moving really well. There was a lot of leaf debris on the freeway, and a couple of fallen trees. About Hattiesburg, we started seeing pieces of blue sky peeking out from the clouds.

Everything was fine here at home. There are some twigs and small branches down, but we have power, sunny skies, and pleasant temps with low humidity. I think Ivan sucked all the moisture out of the air.