Hurricane Ivan

Unless you've been under a rock, you know about Hurricane Ivan. I've mentioned before I grew up in Pensacola, Florida. Hurricane Ivan made landfall shortly after 2am CDT around Gulf Shores, Alabama which is just about 15 miles west from where I lived in West Pensacola. In short this means that the eastern eye wall, or the strongest part of this storm, went right over the Pensacola area. A maximum wind gust of 98 mph was recorded at Pensacola NAS just before 2am.

My father, who rode out the storm in the very house I did alot of my growing up in, has yet to contact me to give his assesment. This was one of those times where I found myself a bit more nervous than usual concerning hurricanes in this area being that for a major part of this storm's life, it was either a catagory 4 or 5 storm. Not that it made too much of a difference, but shortly before landfall, Ivan made a slight downgrade in maximum winds from 135 mph dow to 130 mph. This dropped the storm to just below a Catagory 4. In anycase, this was the strongest Hurricane to hit this area to my knowledge.

My main hope is that as many people as possible are ok. Keep your prayers going and hopefully the worst is over as this storm heads north.

Be easy. ~1~