Stormy Weather

(A Triple Whammy)

As everyone knows, the south has had some pretty stormy weather this past month or so. Beginning with Hanna in early September, things progressed rapidly with Isidore then Lili. Turk's Head did not escape the ravages from any of these three storms although it could have been much worse. I was at the camp during Hanna and all we got was some high water. Some folks evacuated, but I stayed at the camp with one eye on the weather and although some roads around the camp flooded about a foot or so, not much damage, if any occurred. We had water about three feet above normal.

After I returned to Huntsville, Isidore started moving up the Caribbean and during the later part of September, it began to approach the middle of the Gulf Coast. I was pretty much prepared for that one except I didn't tie my boat up to keep it from swinging during high winds. So I called my neighbor and asked him if he could get in before the storm hit and tie up the Breaker. He was able to do so and I found out later, he also tied up my picnic table on the boat house deck. This was really fortunate for me because it would have been gone if he hadn't done that. Here are a couple of pictures from that storm.

I drove down after the storm passed and arrived at the entrance of the road to the camp about 2 p.m, Sept 26th. Here is what I saw when I arrived. These vehicles are all from the area where my camp is located and they are waiting for the water to recede before driving in. Some folks were anxious to see what happened and so they walked in first. When I arrived, the first people I saw were my neighbors and they were walking in. So I told them to watch out for the bees because I knew my hives would be scattered around the neighborhood. I decided not to walk in because I didn't bring any shorts with me. So I waited for them to return and also for the water to recede some more. About an hour later, they returned and said my bees were scattered across the street, the hives broken up and that water had gotten into the camp. That was a real downer. So about another hour I decided to drive in and see what I could do there. As I drove in, the water was just below the truck door openings, about 20 inches. But I made it to the camp OK, there was no water on the road at the camp. I saw my broken hives, so I decided to get them back on the stands as quickly as possible. I had marked the boxes, so I knew what order they needed to be restored. I then went into the camp and much to my surprise, the water had not reached the floor. The water was 8 1/2 feet above normal. About another inch or so and I would have had a big mess. That was a great relief!

Here is a picture taken the next day.

As you can see, the picnic table is hanging by a rope tied to the piling. That's an indicator of how high the water was, enough to float the table off the deck. At the lower left, the wooden stairs are missing, they floated away and I never did find them. You can see I substituted some cement blocks for temporary stairs . The riding lawnmower in the shed was inundated and I spent the next day cleaning that up and getting it running again. I then started to cut the grass, but the belt broke and so I decided to do it another time after I replaced the belt. I returned to Huntsville the next day and then found out Lili was gearing up to enter the Gulf. So I figured now was a good time to move my bees out of that area and to a safe place near Kiln, MS. I already had my bee stands there and so Bill Mullins and I took some hives from Huntsville Tuesday night (Oct. 1) and arrived at Kiln just before daylight and placed the hives on those stands. Then we went to the camp and rested for awhile. Later in the day, we checked the hives that the storm had floated away and found out only one survived and it was queen-right but very weak. I didn't want to have to fix the lawnmower again, so I decided to take it to a safe place Wednesday. Then Wednesday night we took that one weak hive plus another good one I had at a different location, out to the stands at Kiln. We then continued on our way back to Huntsville, because Lili was coming in that night. As we returned on the Interstate, we saw convoys of power utility trucks heading south to prepare for fixing the power lines that would be broken by Lili.

Now that Lili has passed, it appears that Turk's Head did not get as much water as Isidore brought, only about 6 1/2 feet. So I expect (and hope) that not much, if any damage has been caused as a result of Lili. Hopefully, with cooler weather arriving, this hurricane season will come to a close.

More later, after I return from the next trip south.

Epilog

For the record, here's the official tracks for Hanna, Isidore and Lili.

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