That's quite unbeleivable John. It certainly has been a very bad year for storms. Over here in Scotland we have been suffering gales and heavy rain since last Friday, with gusts up to 70mph. It is dry today for the first time in days, and hopefully i can get out to my garden to repair the damage i have from the storm.

It's quite humbling to think that, although we think ourselves the most advanced creatures on Earth, everything we think of as a great creation can be wiped out by a single wave of mother nature's hand!

You can say that again...

One Hurricane makes our Nuclear weapons look like toys... they actually used to talk about trying to blow up Hurricanes. NOAA just laughed... "it's 100 times stronger." It'd be like trying to blow up a solid rock wall with a firecracker.

Ivan's insured losses could reach $6B




MIAMI (Reuters) - Insured losses in the United States from Hurricane Ivan are expected to range from $3 billion to $6 billion, a risk assessment group said Wednesday.

Risk Management Solutions, which provides catastrophe risk management products to the financial services sector, said it came up with its latest estimate after engineers examined wind damage in the Gulf Coast area where Ivan struck on Sept. 16.

RMS last week estimated likely insured losses of between $2 billion and $7 billion. On top of the U.S. losses, Ivan caused insured damage of $1 billion to $2 billion in the Caribbean.

Full Story: http://money.cnn.com

Well $350 dollars of that was fixing my house and fence

We're all lucky Ivan wasn't worse... it could have been.

Unfortunately we're just now half way through. That's kinda scary.

Oh, and riddle me this.

The US as a whole has experienced a rather Mild Spring and Summer this year... lately the SE has been 20 below normal for lows already, in the low 50's at night.

For some odd reason, while the continents are rather mild (beyond an occasional hot spell) and tropical are booming with activity world wide.

It's ironic the oceas are a CO2 sink where as land is not (beyond mass tree landareas) again, like the tropics.

With El Nino also firing up, although weakly, it should make for an interesting next few years.

Though surely we must all ask ourselves... where did all this built up energy come from? Hurricanes are really nothing more than the earth's way of saying "aaahhh much better" after a lot of built up energy. Call it winding down if you will...

I know I agree...it amazes me we had that many hurricanes that bad back to back...kinda wonder what still awaites us...

My dad has a house in Mississippi about 50 miles from shore...his whole area took heavy damage. He has been staying with me since power still out in his area...

All poor people that died and lots their houses my heart goes out to them