Alberto a big bag of hot air

Well, its been a rainy couple of days here in the Tampa Bay area as Tropical Storm Alberto, the first of the year, yeilded some much needed rain. For those concerned, thanks! We made it threw just fine. Honestly, our summer thunderstorms are a lot more intense than Alberto was.

I typically don't get too concerned until the Hurricane is at least a Category 2. A 2 can cause some significant problems for us. A 1 can too, don't get me wrong, but we've weathered 1's with no problems. We got between a Cat 1 and 2 force winds when Charley and Francine blew close by...no problems for us (obviously it was a different story for where they made direct landfall as both Charley and Francine were very intense storms).

Tampa is a lot like New Orleans last year. Its been nearly a Century since we took a direct hit...we get threatened but usually it turns at the last moment. That's caused some of us to harbor an unsafe sense of security. Even a 1 can kill you if you're stupid. I was reading an article in the Tampa Tribune as to what would happen if a Category 5 hit us head on. Its terrifying. We would definitely have a Katrina situation on our hands here with Pinellas County being turned into an island and Downtown Tampa under 20 feet of water. Just chilling to think about.

One of these years, we'll take one head on....let's just hope its not anything more than a 1.