Well, Hurricane Gustav has finally decided to leave Louisiana and Arkansas alone and move on to Kansas City and Chicago today.
The rains started in Hot Springs, Arkansas just after midnight on Monday morning and didn't stop until about 11:00 p.m. Wednesday night. We had wind gusts up to 35 m.p.h. We lost electricity at my house at 2:45 a.m. on Wednesday and got it back on around noon on Wednesday. Wedesday evening, the news said that 86,000 Arkansans were without electricity. Thursday evening, Hot Springs still had 19,000 without electricity; Little Rock had 14,000. Most of our Entergy electric crews were sent to Louisiana before Gustav hit Arkansas. Entergy was able to re-direct some crews from Missouri as they were passing through on their way to Louisiana. Hot Springs got almost nine inches of rain. We have small tree limbs from our pecan tree and oak trees all over our yard from the winds. Quite a few roads were closed because of flash flooding from the rains.
With all of the electricity off and the flooding that we got and winds, we were still blessed to have not gotten any worse damage than we did from Hurricane Gustav. You don't usually think of a hurricane being that big or that powerful once it has gone inland for hundreds and hundreds of miles but Gustav was huge.
I heard that in addition to the hurricane that Louisiana got over a dozen tornadoes over the past few days. I don't think Arkansas had any tornadoes. It is hard to keep up with weather reports when you don't have electricity. We did have a radio on our local station during the day.
The weather this entire year has been strange for Hot Springs---more rain and cooler than usual for Arkansas. This time last year, we were in a 4 or 5 year drought. We aren't now. We have gotten plenty of rain this year, before this week and Hurricane Gustav. I hope that Gustav is gentler on Kansas City and Chicago than it was on Arkansas and Louisiana.
Can you imagine what the world was like before The Weather Channel?
Patricia
4 comments:
My mother loves watching the weather channel! If there is even a dark cloud in the sky she is tuning in!
I'm glad you guys didn't get anything too terrible! Hopefully you won't get much more from Hanna or Ike!!
Jenny, my husband watches it a lot too because of his work. Thanks for your well wishes. I have a friend who weathered out the hurricane in Baton Rouge. I told her that she is braver than I would be.
here is illinois it's only been an after thought, we had rain the entire day thursday and today it looks to be the same
i don't have enough shoes to manage days of rain, thursday between errends and dog walking I soaked 3 pair
for the first time in years autumn has arrived at back to school time
go figure
Mother Earth, glad to hear that Illinois did ok with Gustav. I just got an email from a friend who lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Some of Baton Rouge is still without electricity because of downed electrical lines and fallen trees. She went to church in the dark yesterday. Some of Hot Springs was still without electricity as of the TV news last night. A friend here told me yesterday that she lost all of her peach trees and a neighbor's tree is laying across her fence so cleaning up is still going on here too. Let's pray that Hurricane Ike loses its strength before it hits land and pray for Cuba and the other islands that have been hit by Ike and Gustav.
Post a Comment