>>>Sun is finally peeking through spots. To the south it looks better, to the north, still solid clouds. Having been in real hurricanes (Fran was NOT fun) this was almost a non-event (although those folks flooded and with trees down wouldn't agree). The bad thing about these tropical storms, it can give folks new to the area a false sense of safety. Then when a REAL one comes along, they don't prepare.
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>>I remember Ernesto two years ago. Our daughter just started working, and being a fresh driver, I rather drove her to work (which was just three miles from here). Well, guess what, had to drive around, and luckily I knew the streets well enough to know a way. The bulk of the rain came around noon, and they just decided to close shop around 1:30... so I had to drive there and back while almost all the streets leading there were either stuck or flooded in places. I got there and back, but had to drive around a lot. Of course, two hours later there was no water lying on the roads - the drains work, they just weren't designed for that throughput.
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>My daughter has been driving for a year now. As you know, that amount of experience is not sufficient to handle emergencies unless they've had to deal with them on numerous occasions. She's had to employ defensive driving on many occasions because we have a military base here and many soldiers don't even get their license until they are assigned to their first unit. Plus, we have drivers from all over the U.S. and the world in one location (we actually get Brit soldiers driving on the wrong side of the road on occasion). The central and south american soldiers are the most interesting though - they tend to disregard all traffic signals (as I experienced when I was in their neck of the woods). Water running across a road can look deceptively shallow. We can have such severe thunderstorms here that flooding is not uncommon, but usually doesn't last more than a few hours. It's the slow moving hurricanes that prove the most dangerous. They can dump rain for hours and hours...
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>I know your aversion to tv :o), but I'm surprised you don't watch the weather channel during tropical storm and hurricanes...

Glad it was less than expected in terms of bad weather.

Ike seems to be headed for New Orleans on the latest forecast. I Feel sorry for those who have evacuated and may be heading home only to have to go again in the middle of next week.

BTW that driving on the wrong side of the road is a is a strange feeling. i've done it a couple of times in France on motorbikes (it seems easier to make that mistake on a bike) when the road is very empty and there's not much to give you a reminder which side to be on.