Before we can even say goodbye TD Fay...

Looks like even while we are still dealing with tornado watches and warnings and flood watches and warnings and flash flood watches and warnings spawned by the movement of Tropical Depression Fay, we very likely might have another system, the potential Gustav entering the scene in the southeastern Caribbean. This system could get tropical designation at any time.

Aside from that, Mikey contacted me yesterday to inform me of a live tornado captured and streaming on CNN as it tore through downtown Denver yesterday afternoon, destroying million dollar residences. I was at Wally World, so I missed it all, but here is a link to the story. Thanks, Mikey for keeping me informed.

As for the impact that Tropical Storm Fay had in my area, I guess the best thing to do is give a chronological summary of the events that transpired in my neck of the woods... and share pics. Gtb took the pics of the blown out Taco Bell sign and the Old Times sign that was bent that are posted by Mike on the team blog. Again, thanks bunches, Mike.

So here we go... I guess we started to get far outer bands of light rain on Thursday night. Gtb and I sat in the driveway for a brief time, just enjoying the breeze of the wrap around bands in the light drizzle. It didn't amount to much, and it didn't end up getting bad at 2AM as forecasted. I already covered all that, but it's part of the story. So Friday, it rained all day, and it really started to get heavy as the day wore on... As I mentioned in the previous post, cells which had been tornado warned were headed my way by that afternoon. They closed the office early to allow people to get home before the worst of it moved in... At the house, my Disney World friends (you remember, the ones that asked me if they should break their daughter's heart) were just arriving when I did, on their return trip. They were able to mostly enjoy their vacation because the rain wasn't actually bad at Disney (they suspect that Disney World uses some sort of weather control device.) Of course, up here, we had brief power outages as land saturated with an abundance of rain started to drop trees on power lines. The power company did a fantastic job of managing the grids and maximing power to customers. I did, however, lose cable, internet and my land line... sigh. No radar. I relied on the wonderful members of the Southern Weather Brigade to keep me in the loop (ha ha, I'm so punny). Thanks guys and gal! You rock! Anyways, gtb's kids (and I later found out Mini-Dew, too, at the slumber party she was attending) were out playing in the wind and rain associated with TS Fay... ok, ok, so were gtb and I. We couldn't help ourselves.
I am glad to say that though we were experiencing super-saturation due to the quantity of rainfall (7.88"), it did not appear that flooding was an issue. I am grateful that the rain fell over a long period of time allowing the ground time to catch up. The trampoline net didn't fare so well... but it had already needed to be replaced...Unfortunately and terribly sadly, in Grady County, I did hear of a pre-teenage boy who drowned in the flood waters of a drainage ditch. Incredibly tragic. Rest assured, though, gtb's kids were on high ground and the water was not fast moving, nor was it above a couple of inches in any of the areas they were playing. Well, through the night, the wind howled and the rain poured down. Saturday is when things got interesting for me. I had just said farewell to my guests and was just finishing resetting the clocks from the brief outages the night before and was about to update my CoCoRaHS data since the internet was back up, when WOULDN'T YOU KNOW IT... the power went out. Unfortunately, this wasn't a flicker, it was out!! Then, I heard sirens, so I knew it was a nearby situation. Of course, I went out to investigate... in typical Dew fashion...Ugh! Just outside of my neighborhood, a tree was laying across a power line into the road. I asked the firefighter for an estimate on the power being returned. He said the one down the road took about 6 hours the previous night, so he estimated the same, and of course, you know me, I asked if I could get a little closer for pics. I stood by the mailbox. Didn't feel like getting electrocuted that morning. So, I gathered my things and headed to gtb's parents' house way on down the road, where they have power after being without all night, but not before driving around to see the area damage, to find more trees on wires, bent signs, blown out signs, a tarp covered roof of one of Mini-Dew's dear friend's house (the tree fell into her sister's room, everyone is OK!), limb debris everywhere... (wonderful gtb was sweet in letting me know about the bent sign in town.) Love the accompanying sign... "Come put mama's cooking to the test." lolIt was then that the tornado warnings started feeding in through the Olympics and text messages started rolling into my phone... Gtb's dad turned on the weather radio, and I made some calls. Rick had a tornado a mile from him. Meso Mike was taking cover with his girls in a store in Tifton when they were warned. Jay was giving constant updates. Alabama Mike gave gtb and I some guidance when we headed up to my house to check on things. Everything was terribly rainy, limited views... so we quickly headed back to his parents' house. Things settled down... I don't really like being a sitting duck... at all.

Sunday morning, the rain had subsided drastically as Fay had moved on well to our west, though isolated bands were still feeding through... incidentally, still this morning, tornado warnings were being issued in Alabama as a consequence of that persistent low still drudging its way through the southeast. On our way to church though, we came across this, which I had seen in the paper, but didn't realize where it was. The driver of this car had minor injuries, but was fine as the tree fell on his car while he was driving down the road. It just missed the drivers' side. Incredible.
Anyways... that's my Tropical Storm Fay story. I shot some video, but I haven't reviewed it yet. If it's anything worth posting, I will let you know. Stay tuned for the Tropical Storm Gustav story. Just kidding... maybe.

An anonymous reader asked if a tropical cyclone had ever made 4 landfalls in the same state before... I was stumped. Anyone know the answer to that?

11:00 Update: We have TD 7!

11:30 Update: tornado watch... I'm almost in that area...

2:00 Update: We have Tropical Storm Gustav! 60mph winds, pretty eye forming... My things happen fast around there.Have a great day,
~Dewdrop