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.