re: 10 years ago today - Hurricane Ivan

I'd say pound for pound, it was a stronger storm than Katrina. Obviously Katrina was the worst between the two. The strange thing about that storm was how everyone knew pretty much 6-7 days in advance where it was going to hit. It went south of Cuba and did a complete 90 degree turn. That stretch of hurricanes between 2004-2005 was brutal.

We had a place over on Perdido Bay, which is where the NE Eyewall went over, and it looked like an atomic bomb had gone off. Trees just flattened. Our bayhouse was in a wooded area and afterwards it was if it was in the middle of a field. We rode out the storm in Montgomery and it was tornado warning after tornado warning. One of the bands that struck Central AL in the middle of the night stretched from Montgomery all the way down to Tampa.

Never forget going to Gulf Shores a year after the storm and there were still piles of rubble & debris in the streets. It was as if the storm had hit a few days before.

Ivan also devastated some islands in the Caribbean as a Category 5. It was the legendary storm of a very active 2004.

Then 2005 happened. Wilma broke the pressure record. Two Category 5s in the Gulf, one of which was Katrina.

Lucky for us recently it's been the Pacific pumping out hurricanes. That typhoon that hit the Philippines last November was the most perfect storm I've ever seen. Perfect symmetry. Just a buzzsaw of a storm. It's just a matter of time before the Atlantic kicks back up. The dry air and sheer regime won't last forever.

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I don't think underrated is the right term. It was a huge deal when it hit - particularly when it did the loop and made a second gulf coast landfall. In normal circumstances, it would be thought of right alongside other major storms - but Katrina hit almost exactly one year later drove Ivan from everyone's memory.

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Agree.

I spent all of 2005 in Orange Beach from January on, and the devastation was tremendous from that storm. I remember going into the lobby of a couple of Pheonix's (I-III) and it being washed out and the pool destroyed and full of sand. And next door, Romar Towers pool and patio was just buried, even a year later at the end of 2005. Also, the 30 foot high piles of debris on Canal road where the Wharf is now that they removed on barges gave a good idea of just how much was destroyed.

I'll have to find my pictures and post them. It was truly an awesome display of destruction, you can't really comprehend how bad it was with out being here a few days afterwards. The pictures tell the story but lack the true magnitude of the damage.

The weather afterwards was some of the best that I've ever felt here. That storm changed the atmosphere for a good two weeks. It was absolutely perfect weather, which really helped with the cleaning up and help keep further damage to a minimum.

My brother and I played poker with some friends in mobile til 4am and watched the weather all night. It was really eery and I knew that Orange Beach was getting hammered. I was shocked when I saw it first hand the next day. I have several friends who were city admins, or Council members at the time who road it out at the city jail. Said it was intense.

And the FloraBama has never been the same.

Yeah, it actually improved the florabama substantially.

Hard to believe, but true

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in reality the entire area, for the most part, has benefited from Ivan. It was the push/destruction needed to get the area to a different more modern level

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There was a mad scramble by developers to secure property during that time frame. We had just bought a piece of Gulf Front for development, closed the week prior to Ivan. Against the Insurance Agents recommendations (tear down rebuild plans) we decided to purchase FULL Coverage on the property instead of just liability. It took 4+- years to get paid by the insurance company, got the policy max :) National Flood Insurance paid pretty fast, within a year, full policy max :) .. All of that really helped reduce our overall cost on the property, however, we haven't rebuilt yet but are beginning to feel that the market is where we should start back with the process.

If this is the same hurricane that I'm remembering, we were without power for about 2 days in Prattville.