Does anyone remember Hurricane Gloria?

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

I think Hurricane Gloria was about one of the strongest hurricanes ever recorded in terms of size, strength, etc. I lived in Rhode Island at the time and I recall getting a phone call the day it was supposed to hit from an old friend in the south who said, somewhat disconcertingly to me, "I just wanted to hear you again . . ." And I thought, WTF??!!! Have they told people to callup and say goodbye to people in it's track?

I think Gloria made the cover of Time magazine. It was a horrifying storm. We lived on relatively high ground and my husband's parents and some friends and their pets came to stay with us. I had food, games, candles, batteries, supplies, water bottles, anything you could ever think of, collected in our basement where we were determined to head when the storm came.

Long story short - almost nothing happened in terms of rain, wind and flooding where we were. I think it stayed pretty much out to sea and merely brushed us.

And do you know what? PEOPLE WERE DISAPPOINTED!!!!! There were assholes everywhere complaining about losing time, money for supplies, closed businesses, duct tape, plywood, etc. and "Nothing Happened!!!!" What a hype for nothing,etc.etc.etc.

Everyone needed to kneel and kiss the ground and thank God that they had prepared for a disaster that didn't happen. Complacency is the biggest enemy with natural disasters.

I went through Isabel a few years ago which was a category 1 when it hit and it did plenty of damage - enough to cure me forever of downplaying any storm. After Isabel, I have no personal desire to experience a 2 or a 3. A good nor easter or a tropical storm can do plenty of damage and kill people. A fairly weak storm can have almost no wind but become a rain event and just drown a place.

You honestly just never know because every single storm has it's weird little idiosyncrasies. The big ones can become pygmies and the little ones can become monsters in terms of damage.

[tpsbmam]

1. I remember Gloria very clearly.....

I lived in CT and we got tons of rain and wind. We lived high on a hill and were confident we'd be safe, which we were. We had lots of trees down, though, couldn't get out of our road for a few days and had no power for 2 weeks. We put a generator in after that -- among other things, we lived on well water -- no electricity, no water. I may have been a little cavalier about storms until Andrew -- just seeing that one on TV cured me!

The first one I remember was Betsy. I was too young to understand the damage it wrought elsewhere and just remember being at my grandfather's house when it hit and finding it exciting. Sadly, the young in places like NO grow up much faster than I had to when it comes to hurricanes.

[tannybogus]

2. I was in SC.

I remember watching people in NY leaning out into the sea and making fun of Gloria.

I wouldn't have done that! Karma.

[Warpy]

3. It hit west of where I was

and I have a whole box of slides I took the day after of downed trees, smashed windows, and expensive sailboats piled up against a bridge because their yuppie owners were too lazy to come out to rig them for a storm and they'd snapped their mooring lines.

Gloria was no lady.

We didn't see a drop of rain, but we got terrible wind. I did go to the beach that day, or a quarter mile from where the beach usually was. The surf was great. I left when friends noticed their car was being pushed backwards by the wind with the emergency brake set.

[Sydnie]

4. Gloria came through just a few weeks after I was married - remember it well

but it was BOB that did the most damage in this area. We were without power for over a week, begging those with power in the next town to allow us to come to their house for a shower every few days since we have wells here. It was a mess and as dark as I can ever remember the world being.

Just two weeks ago (this coming Tuesday) we had a micro-burst in my town and yes, it was right at where my house is. Trees are down everywhere, power and phones were out for days. All that damage with NO warning and over in less than 5 minutes. I'll take a hurricane that I can prepare for any day over that again.

Weather here is very, very weird this year. Very weird.

Stay safe out there everyone!