Friday, July 08, 2005

The Hurricane Dennis Saga Continues...


Until the power goes out, I plan to blog the storm. So if you're far away and you want to know what's happening, you can find out here. And the millions of news channels and Internet sites that will be reporting on it. Oh well. But anyway, here are my observations of the Friday before a Sunday landfall. This afternoon I went to Wal-Mart for a completely non-hurricane purpose. I had to buy some things for work. It was a complete mad house. First off, I had to park in the parking lot of the restaurant across from the Wal-Mart store and walk across the vast expanse that is the Wal-Mart parking lot. There were that many cars there. I wonder if all these people got the afternoon off from work? So I went into Wal-Mart and could barely walk around. It was just a bad time to be there. I wandered around aimlessly for a few minutes, trying to figure out where I was supposed to be going. When I finally saw the aisle I was looking for and got my items, I got into a check out line and waited for 20 minutes. Yes, 20 minutes, to get checked out. I was 6th in line, and it was the shortest one. The lady in front of me bought 4 cases of frozen hamburgers. Each case was 8 pounds. When her power goes out, she's going to have to cook hamburgers for her whole neighborhood to avoid having spoiled meat lying around. Gross. People just don't use common sense before a storm. (says the girl whose family never evacuates, lol)

So anyway, after the ill-conceived trip to Wal-Mart, I went back to work and got phone numbers for local media so I can do my job on Monday when the storm is over. I'll have to help give info about relief efforts, so I brought those phone numbers with me when I came home this weekend.

When I started the drive home, from Mobile to the Eastern Shore, the traffic was the strangest thing I've ever seen. The east bound lane was almost completely clear, but the west bound lane was literally bumper to bumper. They were not even moving on the Bayway. All those cars, trucks, tankers, and RVs just sitting there on the Bayway, trying to get out of town. And that was before the manditory evacuation order for Mobile County, and the one that will be announced tomorrow for Baldwin County. We're not going, but most people probably will.

I'll have more info tomorrow, probably. If not more info, I will at least have more observations of Dennis mania here on the Alabama Gulf Coast.

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