Thanks for the new thread Mike! You were awesome in keeping the board running through Charley.

Finally some GOOD news. A nice fish spinner and the (for now) end of Earl. I'm definitely of the mind that he will regenerate, at least up to TS status, possibly more, but he's Yucatan bound an probably only a worry to South Texas, if that.

Anyone with personal accounts, stories, even secondary or tertiary-hand accounts of the storm are all welcome here right now. If you guys & gals need to emote, I pretty much think the whole board is in agreement that it is absolutely fine to do so.

On a side note, I received a number of PMs this afternoon from "survivors" thanking "me" for the great coverage. I didn't do nothin' other than sit here in my monitors chair making sure we kept the Orlando Waitings and Roberts off the air. Via this post, I'll pass along all your kind thoughts to Mike, John, Ed & HF...and you guys were outstanding throughout it all!

Finally, it looks like the tropix will be mellow for the rest of the week, though Earl does bear watching and Frances may be borne from the wave which exited Africa yesterday. At least I can say with relative confidence that Floridians do not need to worry about Earl.

After what happened with Charley, I hope no one on these boards wants to root on a storm to greater and greater strength...maybe a fish spinner...but that's it. We're now just entering the heart of the season, and I venture to guess that if the season were to end today, we'd consider it "active." The Good Lord only knows what's in store in the coming weeks...almost don't even want to think of it.

Again, anyone who's just getting their power back or who hasn't been able to post for whatever reason, please feel free to do so.

OK, peace to all...as long as you are not injured or dead, you should probably consider yourself among the lucky.

LI Phil