Sounds like two couples going on a summer picnic. Not so this summer, it's follow-the-leader and like in baseball you'll need a scorecard to keep track.

The 2008 hurricane season was quite normal before Fay and as most Floridians can attest, Fay could hardly be called normal. She hung around and settled in for a visit only to become an unwelcome guest. Eventually though she got the picture and moved along to lower Alabama and Mississippi. Just as Fay was making her exit Monday August 25th a guy named Gustav came on the scene near Port Au Prince Haiti and moved west toward the vacation spots of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. By Saturday August 30th Gustav had turned to the northwest and as it headed for the Gulf of Mexico gained strength and wind speed. As a consequence western Cuba felt the wrath of Gustav's 120 mph winds. On that same day Tropical Storm Hanna was located 240 miles north of San Juan, Puerto Rico with 50 mph winds and moving to the west at 12 mph. Sunday morning August 31st Gustav was located 470 miles southeast of New Orleans and carrying winds of 120 mph. Forecasters expected the worst that Gustav would increase to Category 4 hurricane. At about that same hour Tropical Storm Hanna located 155 miles east northeast of Grand Turk Island was moving west-northwest at 8 mph showing winds of 60 mph. During that day the mainstream media was in a frenzy and scurrying off to New Orleans – apparently heading off to cover another Katrina. Fortunately it didn't happen.

On Monday morning Gustav, a Category 2 hurricane made land fall south of Houma, Louisiana, located 75 miles south southwest of New Orleans, at 10:00 am CDT carrying, lower than predicted, winds of 110 mph. Of course even with the reduced wind speed Gustav did considerable damage along the coast of Mississippi and Louisiana. But it was nothing on the scale of the monster storm that had been predicted. This time around the people of New Orleans got out of town and while they were inconvenienced – they were alive. By late in the afternoon following Gustav's morning show many of the bars on Bourbon Street were open for business.

In the meantime while Gustav traveled north toward Shreveport Tropical Storm Hanna with winds of 70 mph was located 385 miles southeast of Nassau. Next in that Daisy chain of hurricanes Tropical Storm Ike was 1, 235 east of the Leeward Islands carrying winds of 50 mph. Next in line is Tropical Storm Josephine located in the east Atlantic and is tracking west at about 12 mph. Stay tuned.

Back to 1945

Excerpt from my Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.

On September 2nd 1945 while Squadron 114 was concentrating on hurricanes' the eyes of the world were on the USS Battleship Missouri, anchored in Tokyo Bay. A Japanese delegation arrived to make their government's unconditional surrender official. The new Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Japan, General Douglas MacArthur, directed the ceremonies. The general made a brief opening statement and then directed the Japanese representatives to sign the official documents. Once the documents were signed for all practical purposes the Japanese government had accepted the Potsdam Declaration calling for the complete disarmament and surrender of all Japan's military forces. General MacArthur said, “We pray that peace be now restored to the world, that God will preserve it always. These proceedings are closed.” With the documents signed by Japanese representatives and the pronouncement made by General MacArthur World War II had officially ended.

Writers Notebook:

The original writers notebook was Somerset Maugham's pocket size note pad in which he kept a journal of events, people and places describing everything in great detail. And it was from those notes that he built his plots and storylines. Here's one of his notes titled: Lodging House.

It is a two-story frame house with verandas on both floors and it is about five minutes' walk from the dock, on the Broad Road and faces the sea. Below is a store in which are sold canned goods, pork and beans, beef, hamburger steak, canned asparagus, peaches and apricots; and cotton goods, Lava Lava's, hats, raincoats and such like. The owner is a half-caste with a native wife surrounded by little brown children. The rooms are almost bare of furniture, an iron bed with a ragged mosquito curtain, a rickety chair and a washstand. The rain rattles down on the corrugated iron roof. No meals are provided.

The above description along with one of the missionary, his wife and Miss Thompson provided Maugham with the basic material he needed to construct his famous story called  "Rain."

Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter. Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday's Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.

www.tombarnes39.com
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