Hurricane Hanna: Heading here?

It seems that New Orleans dodged a bullet this weekend. Hurricane Gustav had everyone scared and thinking, not again! In anticipation of this major Hurricane perhaps making landfall on the Louisiana coast as a category 4, most of the state's coastal towns were evacuated. I think I heard the weather channel say it was over 2 million people that had been evacuated from the area.

Overall, it seems like the situation was handled quickly and more efficiently than with Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005. Thousands are without power still, but the important thing is that most people's houses and lives were spared. I personally get very wrapped up in Hurricane news sometimes, wanting to watch all night long to see what is going to happen. G agreed to let me keep our TV on Sunday night to watch the progress of the Hurricane. I turned the sound off, but I woke up throughout the night and watched the storm. I don't know why it seems to mean so much to me since I'm nowhere near New Orleans, but I guess it's still a human interest story. I know what it's like to lose almost everything you own in one terrible night, and I sympathize with others who are going through those same fears and experiences.

But with Gustav out of the way and no serious damage done in most major areas along the coast, there is another storm gaining strength in the Atlantic... Hurricane Hanna. And where do expert's say this one is headed? They have said that it is hard to tell at this point, but that it is expected to curve north towards the Atlantic coast of the US, possibly making landfall anywhere from Miami to Massachusettes. G and I don't live on the coast of North Carolina, but we live around 2 hours away from the coast, which means that if this storm hits the NC coast, we will definitely see some severe storms, flooding, and possibly tornadoes here in the Raleigh area.

Historically, they are saying that past hurricanes that were in the same place Hanna is now did not go towards the Atlantic coast, but rather headed into the gulf for the most part. Of course, as we know, every hurricane is unpredictable to a certain extent and who knows where it will go. The forecasters use all of this scientific software to calculate the possible path of the hurricanes, and they are saying that the US Atlantic coast is possibly facing a major hurricane threat. I wonder what kind of storms we would have being only a little over 100 miles from the coast? I would rather not find out!

Of course, the Georgia coast would be awful too... I would hate to see anything terrible happen in Savannah, a city so ripe with history and southern tradition. Also, St. Simons Island is like a second home to me in some ways, and I pray that it is not hit by a hurricane. I guess we will just have to keep our eyes on this new storm and pray that it either dissipates or heads back out to sea somewhere. The most likely scenario right now has Hurricane Hanna hitting Charleston, South Carolina on Friday.