http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050715/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/hurricane_emilyHmmmmm, 2005 and already Florida had two baths, in the same areas as 2004 to boot! Now here is Hurricane Emily, a Cat 4 hurricane that could reach Cat 5 like Hurricane Mitch was back in the late 90's, not to say Cat 4 is much less. I wanted part of the summer vacation (2 weeks starting this Sat) at Padre Island in south Texas with Vicky, but she wanted Cancun. Well, guess what is in the path of hurricane Emily? Cancun!
We'll know by Sunday if it will smack the Yucatan hard. Then it will be interesting to see where she heads next. Will it be the gulf coast of Texas? Louisiana?, or will Florida take another bath?
The upside to all this natural disaster crap is that we have lots of wells and refineries located on the gulf, and when they get screwed by Mother Nature then it affects oil prices (bad for consumers), but it also makes tanker rates skyrocket (good for people like me), just like in the last 3 months of 2004 when the gulf refineries and oil wells were recovering from hurricane Ivan.
Don't forget, if a Cat 3 or above hits New Orleans dead on with heavy seas (Dennis made a 33 foot wave surge once), then bye-bye New Orleans as it is located BELOW sea level.
What will really be an arse kicker is if another storm forms while Emily is on the rag, just like Dennis formed while a tropical storm was loose in the Caribbean.