I understand your concerns, as a fellow North GA resident (about 20 miles north of Atlanta) not too many people on this board understand our soft pine dilemma and what I would consider our inadequate city infrastructure.

You do not have to look too far back – Frances - to see what 24 hours of “high” winds and rain can do to our great city. Coming out of a 5-year drought and pine beetle infestations our soft pines are weak and brittle, not to mention that they have a shallow root system, not good in strong winds.

As a previous person mentioned, the primary concern will be high winds and rain (flooding) but unlike Frances, we will be more in the north/northeast part of the storm. Historically, most are the tornadoes are generated in that quadrant of tropical systems. The only “good” thing is that tropical spun tornadoes tend to be weak (0-1 on the scale) although Frances had spun some particularly strong twisters – Hilton Head Island was fascinating by very dangerous. As of the 9/12 11pm NHC reports, the center of Ivan will still maintain itself as a tropical storm as far inland as south of Rome, GA !!! That is impressive and scary.

At this point, if you know you have trees on your property that “could” reach your house, then I would see if you could get them removed. Trust me, it is a great investment. I pulled 40 pines last year from my backyard!! It was not cheap, but at least I do not evacuate to the bottom floor when the wind blows or when there is an ice storm.

Mitch…