re: Worst hurricane you've experienced?

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So more or less like a strong thunderstorm

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That’s all Rita was for AP. We had a good bit of rain, and several tornados around us, so there was some flooding and a little damage here and there, but it didn’t really feel like being in a hurricane. I do think Rita was technically worse for AP, than Katrina was though. Katrina didn’t really do anything to us.

Only hurricane I've rode out in a coastal area was Hurricane Dennis in 2005. Was in St. Pete/Tampa at the time and dealt with a fair amount of flooding and some tornadoes (I think it was a Cat 3 when it hit landfall up in the panhandle). So definitely not as bad as others.

That said, Hurricane Ike fricked us up here in Louisville in 2008. We had Hurricane-level wind gusts and it tore down a ton of trees and knocked power out for weeks. They had to delay the start of school that year because of the damage.

It then compounded things later that year when he had the 2009 Ice Storm that, again, knocked out power for weeks because trees that were weakened during Ike failed under the weight of the ice.

Just insane.

Wilma was pretty rough. I can’t recall the names but we had many in the mid 2000s hit South FL.

I for sure thought Dorian was going to hit Florida bad. It turned so hard last second. I remember seeing the outer walls of the storm off the coast. I drove a few miles to the beach and just watched it pass us. That was surreal. I was living in Daytona at the time and I expected the worst.

Rode out Katrina (on accident) on a houseboat in Venice


If I’m being completely honest, that experience has had some lingering effects on me and I don’t think I’ve completely ‘recovered’. Bad weather, specifically lightning for some reason, really fires up my anxiety to a level that’s hard to explain. I get the shakes and it becomes a little difficult to function sometimes

Katrina- evacuated to Baton Rouge then Zachary, lost all roofing material due to a twister, new roof and the entire inside of the house gutted and replaced due to water damage, fence blown over, out of the house for 7 months
Ida- evacuated to Houston for 5 days, many shingles lost, roof replaced, most of fence replaced, one large pine tree blown down

Camille

I was 7 and still remember the pine trees swaying, creaking, the lightning, and everyone under the tables in the kitchen and dining room.

I've experienced:

Lili -- evacuated to Ville Platte .. likely could have stayed home and experienced the same

Rita -- evac to BR .. I was scared beyond belief after seeing what Katrina did .. got a new roof but no other real damage

Laura -- stayed home, we got lucky and it didn't do much here south of Lafayette .. and evacuating with a cat is not easy.

Delta -- Didn't like her but we stayed here south of Lafyette .. stayed home and was out of power for maybe 10 days? Yeah for generators and a shitload of fuel from my husbands work place



I'm always ready to evacuate but my husband likes to stay close to check on things at work ASAP

Hurricane Andrew. New Iberia, 1992. We had no electricity for over a week. I was in high school and first thought it was great to be missing school, but all I did was clean up leaves and tree branches in our huge yard and take cold showers (we had an electric water heater). I also sweated my arse off every night with no A/C in late August in south Louisiana. It sucked...

Tie between Ike and Harvey.

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Saying Rita was bad for St Amant is like Lake Charles people saying Ida was bad for them. We had some thunderstorms from it but nothing bad. Some of you people are trying to put yourselves in storms that didn't really effect you

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I wasn’t saying it was bad. I literally listed it dead last in terms of severity.

However, since we’re on the topic, Baton Rouge experienced sustained winds of 41mph with gusts to 53mph along with over 9 inches of rain for Rita. It was likely a bit “worse” in St. Amant. That’s nothing to sneeze at because all that rain can weaken tree root systems while consistent 50mph gusts bring down lots of trees.

So though Rita was certainly not anything terrible, it wasn’t a day in the park either. If a system was heading here now with 9” of rain and 50mph gusts for a few hours in our forecast, this board would be jizzing all over itself over the idea of major power outages.