More Hurricanes

Having escaped the ravages of Irene, unlike a number of our neighbors, Harold and I thought ourselves lucky to be able to catch a plane out of Philadelphia and make our way to the Mississippi Gulf Coast for a visit with relatives. We touched down in Gulfport, picked up the rental car and drove east along front beach. Out over the water we could see a boiling soup of many-shaped gray clouds. It was kinda pretty.

The soup was busy forming itself into Hurricane Lee, or tropical storm Lee, later tropical depression Lee. Jim Cantore, whom I had last seen on the Battery in New York City before the lights went off in Lambertville, popped up in Biloxi and began to be storm-tossed. We began to be storm-tossed. Several days of wind and rain ensued, which were not unpleasant, at least for us, since the brunt of the storm's fury went off to Louisiana and points north. Foaming surf is quite unusual for Ocean Springs. People like it. It's exciting. For the last few days the weather has been sunny and mild here, ideal vacation weather.

Now that we're getting ready to go home I see from the internet that the wretched Lee has washed out Route 29 both north and south of Lambertville, dumped enough water upstream to flood the Delaware again, and closed most of the bridges. Philadelphia Airport was said to have been under three inches of water. We hope it's okay by the time our plane lands. From time to time we pull up the web page of the USGS streamflow data for Lambertville, hoping the Delaware River hasn't gotten into our house.

Meanwhile I won an award. I'm very pleased about that. I can't tell you what it is until Monday.

Kate Gallison