[mykdsmom]

Oh no, WAY WAY WAY worse than that. Not just huge limbs breaking off but whole trees uprooting and smashing through people's roofs and on their cars. Entire rows of houses were destroyed.

We had had a particularly wet summer (although no where near as wet as this summer) before the Sept that Fran hit and the ground was super saturated before we got 10-15 inches of Fran rain. It just uprooted trees by the thousands. There was virtually nowhere in this city you could drive to for days for the trees that blocked all of the roads.

Add 100 mph. winds to that and you have a HUGE mess on your hands. Pretty remarkable she was still a hurricane when she reached Raleigh over 100 miles inland. The night I spent going through Andrew in S FL and the night I spent going through Fran in NC were 2 of the most terrifying nights of my life.

As bad as the trees falling were though, the transformers exploding and arcing wires all night long was equally bad. Made much worse d/t the lack of power so you don't have a clue what is going on outside just this horrible noise and crashing. I don't ever want to go through this again in my lifetime.

MKM

[glory]

I remember Andrew too. Nasty storm, nasty results. I remember that there were pretty much no landmarks left--it was pretty barren for an area covered in palm, mangrove, and passion fruit trees. To get to my mother's condo, you had to drive carefully through electric wires that crossed this way and that on the road and through the air. Very bizarre and eerie feeling going through all of that. I recently visited the Miami area for the first time since that storm(I moved shortly after it hit in 92) and there were still areas that were not repaired or seemed overgrown compared to how I remember them(like they had been abandoned). Strange feeling going there after 11 years!

[Old Professer]

Imagine all that happening without a second's warning and over in 45 seconds and you have the Northridge earthquake that we went through in 1994.

[AlwaysLurking]

You describe it perfectly.....I went thru Fran in Raleigh and it was enough to drive a sane person mad...the noise is horrible and unrelenting until the eye comes over....and shortly after that eerie quiet, it all starts again for another 4 hours....horrible....do not ever stay in the path if you can help it!