HURRICANE!!!!!
Those who live in the eastern third of our country have a built in knee-jerk response, if those three little syllables are uttered in the public record. And for damn good reason, too; more often than not, these super-storms can cause billions - if not trillions - in damage, AND can claim countless human lives in the bargain, all within a relatively short time span. One need only to Garggle {sic} "Katrina," to fully understand the utter devastation a potent hurricane can unleash.
For my money, hurricanes should always command a large measure of respect, 'cos you never really know for sure how they're going to behave, professional meteorology notwithstanding. As a case in point, I humbly submit for your consideration Katrina's great-grandson Ike, who blew ashore right over Galveston Texas in September of 2008. This particular Big Blow is quite special for many reasons, the chief one being that he turned out to be the first {and hopefully last} hurricane I have ever directly experienced - in St. Louis Missouri, no less!!!
You read that right, Cats & Kitties. Yours Humbly "Rode the Storm Out" {REO Speedwagon pun deliberate} a good thousand or so miles away from any kind of coastline; this fact being the first measure of just how strong Ike really was. Pre-landfall, Ike was nothing if not typical at birth. Atlantic Ocean-spawned, he gained and lost strength wildly, thanks to some pretty wicked atmospheric fluctuations; changed course a half-dozen times before landfall; and ultimately showed his true potential by developing early on THE most focused - and sharply defined - Eye anyone had ever seen in the last 75 years.
Ironically, Ike's raucous landfall over Galveston stopped just short of being the most devastating storm the island-city ever endured. Despite Ike's very best efforts, that dubious "honor" remained with the "Great Galveston Storm of 1900," by the thinnest of margins. No matter, though - as it turned out, Ike was just getting warmed up. After messing over Galveston but good, Ike quickly blasted almost due north for close to 800 miles, before finally beginning to slowly veer east by the time he was over Dodge City, Kansas.
Such was Ike's strength, it really didn't matter that he could no longer feed from a large body of water; he made do just fine by drawing from at least a half-dozen inland rivers that lay in his path. The icing on the cake was Ike's absolutely ferocious windshear, which had already helped to create his once-in-a-lifetime Eye. Said windshear was potent enough to allow Ike to also draw sustenance from the ambient humidity in the air, as well as from ground-level sources. It was at this point - high over Dodge City - that Ike collided with an "Alberta Clipper" in true Wild West Gunslinger style. The strong eastbound cold front met Ike's even stronger northbound warm front heart at full force, giving the hurricane a new lease on life.
As a result of all this, Ike didn't get downgraded from hurricane to tropical storm until very late in his life, well after making landfall. What he did immediately gain from the "gunfight" though, was a new status as the "Father Of All Supercells," spawning everything from heavy thunder, lightning, and hail, to F4 tornadoes all along an outrageous frontal boundary that would soon stretch border-to-border - almost 2100 miles - before all was said and done.
And this is precisely where I blundered into the picture. I'd been tracking Ike since he'd clobbered Cuba, and had been knocked sideways by how big and well-defined his Eye was. Once he hit Galveston though, I figured that was that - I mean, who in blue blazes had ever heard of an inland hurricane? Hell, Ike's brother Gustav hadn't impressed me in the least a mere week previously, becoming a tropical storm the instant he made landfall, although his trajectory was almost as deeply inland as Ike's was. Our antagonist soon showed me the error of my thinking, in pretty dramatic fashion, the night he stormed Dodge City.
In 2008, my Sunday evening ritual was attending Buffalo Bob Fancher's jam session, held in the good old Backstreet Jazz & Blues Club in Westport. Despite some pretty wild weather riddled through the previous eight months, by the time August rolled around I was quite blas`e about travel during inclement conditions. This was due in no small part to the abilities of my beloved GMC Jimmy, who was a true stalwart in cheerfully plowing his way over, under, or straight through anything the weather put in his path. Ice, snow, wind, electricity, heat, cold; you name it, and Mein Kampfwagen James could tame it.
The ride up to Backstreet was soggy enough to require the highest windshield-wiper speed setting, but otherwise seemed like a typical St. Louis "monsoon," save for the odd strong wind gust, or three. My grunt-buggy held the road with confidence, and I looked forward to a good play. A mere five hours later, I climbed back into my trusty ride, and "Got the Hell out of Dodge," only to find us smack dab in the middle of Ike flexing his newly-strengthened muscles with a vengeance!! On top of everything else, Ike was by now drawing even more sustenance from the remnants of his brother Gustav, the very same one I'd been totally unimpressed by several days previously.
Boys and Girls, you just haven't lived until you've seen a Roadway triple-trailer rig get blown completely off the highway a mere three hundred yards or so in front of you. Or seen rain fall sideways and UP just as much as down. Or felt a distinct moving current under your wheels, from a way-swollen drainage creek. Or witnessed two lightning bolts striking each other at their ends in a genuinely frightening, and incredibly spectacular display of Nature fully Unleashed.
I saw all of this, and one hell of a lot more during the most intense 90 minutes I've ever experienced in my whole life. Although my normal 30-minute commute home had been tripled due to Ike's wrath, James and I nonetheless arrived back at the shanty safe and sound, complete with a reinforced respect for Nature's raw power. Hurricane Ike would go on to earn his place in History as that rarest of rarities, a 100% legitimate inland hurricane. And I would never, ever again be so blas`e about travel during inclemency; even though his Eye never got closer to St. Louis than Kansas City, Ike's awesome {dude} overall power was still more than enough Lesson for me, thank you very much!!!
And I'll never ever forget it, too!!!
Until next, a round of Colortinis for the House.......
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