I sort of expected it when I moved to Florida 5+ years ago, so when the eye of hurricane Sally struck about 100 miles west of here last week, wasn’t really a surprise. It was Tuesday when the heavy rain started, and it continued through midday Wednesday. There was some wind, enough to drop a few trees within a mile of me, but heavy rain caused much of the damage. Over 20-inches fell in this area. They could have used that 20-inches on the west coast to kill the fires there; that’s something like eight years of rain at my former Los Angeles address! I hope no readers were seriously impacted by storms or wildfires on either side of the country.
Roughly 60-100 miles or so west of here, throughout coastal Mississippi, Alabama, and northwest Florida, there was serious flooding and widespread damage as the ground couldn’t absorb the rainfall fast enough. Pensacola, FL was hard hit (photo above). Thankfully, loss of life was low (limited to one person by the latest estimates I’ve see) but a full recovery will be slow in the hardest hit areas..
Flooding was also forecast for my area, but luckily only an inch or two of water approached within 15 feet of my ground-level house. But for an audio/video fan that can be nail- biting. As I’ve done a few of times before, I moved the most vulnerable pieces of gear out of the way as much as possible just in case. Unfortunately, that involved tearing down much of my A/V system, which I’m only just getting reinstalled. The TVs and some of the front-end equipment are all at least 18-inches off the floor, but my power amps sit on the floor, so I moved them to the top of a kitchen island. Luckily I had recently returned the Outlaw amp I discussed in my last blog. No way was I going to lift that 100 lbs. monster up that high.
