Ernesto is now moving out. We are still getting rain, and the sump pump is going like a bat out of hell! But we were spared the worst (Tidewater caught the worst of it). Still, with over 300k without power and I would estimate (my bucket measure) about 6 inches of rain, he was no friend of ours!
The rain is slacking off, but the wind is going gungho! It seems he is running into a high pressure ridge, so the gradient means we are getting a lot of wind. That, along with the rain means trees coming down (I had to detour twice on my way home), but at least we are not getting a lot of flooding (some, but then this area is has bowls that just beg for flooding).
Up here in the old Dominion, we dont get many Hurricanes. Isabel (3 years ago) was the first hurricane that hit us since Donna back in the 60s. But we do get a lot of left overs. Camille washed a county down the valley! (24 inches in about 12 hours. Half the county was gone). Agnes flooded us worse than Camille. And of course Floyd and Gastone. So Ernie is in that vein. Lots of rain and as it butts up against a high pressure ridge, it dumps on us!
Florida is lucky in that at least it drains well! With all the red clay here, we dont. So this does cause problems. The roads that are not flooded, have accidents. Or trees. Or debris.
But we are usually only cursed with one a year, so I guess we have had our one. Gideon said the "experts" have downgraded their forecast again. ONLY 5 hurricanes this year. But Gastone was never a hurricane and it was the worst thing to his this city in the last 2500 years (well, that is according to those same experts, so - eh, what do they know?).
Someone said move to Utah. No Earthquakes, tornadoes, or Hurricanes! Ok, but then I have heard of some monster blizzards out there! Been in one back in the 80s as well.
Mother nature will not be denied. Where ever you live, she is going to show you who is boss! And even the might of 6 billion people cannot stop her even yet!
And so when someone starts yelling "global warming" (or as they did in my 20s, "Global Cooling"), I just smile and nod and pass them by. Man is puny in what it can do to the whole planet. We can effect changes on a micro scale. But Mother nature still holds all the aces. And she is the one calling the dance card.