Hurricane Katrina, August 2005

For the first time we experienced a direct hit by a hurricane and being in the eye of the storm, here is the blog and the pics:

Wednesday morning started with Tropical Depression 12 which before noon turned into Tropical Storm Katrina. At 10:30 pm Hurricane Warning has been issued for our area, strike probablity for Miami is 33%. Storm is expected to hit on Friday. Guess these are bad news for the MTV Video Music Awards which are happening here this weekend...

Thursday 8:00 am, the strike probability for Miami is up to 44%. So far only voluntary evacuation so we can stay at home. The storm is supposed to hit the coast at 2am Friday morning. The nice thing about hurricane warning is, it is like Hitzefrei in Germany. No school and no work...

Thursday 8:45 am, I went to the Surfcomber (MTV Hotel) just in time to take pictures of the MTV Moonman being taken down... Thursday 4:00 pm, Katrina got upgraded to hurricane and the strike probability for Miami is now 99%. Patricia had to work until 4pm and drive home under hurricane conditions. Volvochen got hit by some flying wood.

6:30pm Katrina already made landfall and at 7pm we were actually in the eye of the hurricane. People used this calm for a little walk. Indeed it was very calm, almost as if the storm is over. But now wind is very strong again, stronger than before. The wind is whistling extremely loudly trough the windows and doors.

Friday 1 am, it seems as if the biggest part of the storm is past us. It is still very windy outside. Cable TV is out since like 9pm. We are all well. The girls are sleeping and I will join them :-)
Sunday 11am, we were lucky. 300k people including some of our friends are still without power. And Katrina since gained a lot of power. It is now a category 4 hurricane and might reach level 5 before it hits New Orleans tomorrow.