My Barbados Blog

For the last two weeks, it's all been about Hurricane Dean. When you're in this business, especially Caribbean Travel, hurricane season is always a stressful time.

But while Dean was one of the largest and most powerful hurricanes, who would have suspected that the weather here in the U.S. in the last week would kill more people than a Category 4 hurricane?

In the past two weeks, there have been 22 weather related deaths. Yes, we have our own "weather situation" right here in the U.S.

The Southern states are burning up with heat - Memphis, Tennessee has posted 11 days of 100 degree temperature and it got so bad that they had to shut down the nuclear power reactors because the run off water was too hot. And the rest of the South is suffering from record high temperatures.

Texas and Oklahoma went through severe flooding last week, and we all saw the water rescues from corn fields that had enough water to swallow up cars - now it's the U.S. Midwest states. 

Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio are all under severe flood watches. It just won't stop raining.

Today we had to completely shut down our systems four times because of 48,000 lightening strikes - not a misprint!

Tornado sirens went off at least 3 times, and still more rain, strong winds and hail.  

We thought the worst was finally over this afternoon, and then Chicago (which is 25 minutes away) got hit with a severe storm that brought widespread damage.

So we powered down again and waited for this new storm to pass over. Tonight over 300,000 people are without power, 500 flights at O'hare were cancelled, and Chicago is a mess with lots of downed trees, damaged buildings and property.

And yet here in Indiana another bad storm is on the way as I type.

Last Thursay we were among the 100,000 without power for 2 days after yet another severe storm hit - and it has not stopped raining since then. How much water can the ground take! 

Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Iowa and Wisconsin are all under severe thunderstorm warnings and a flash flood watch until Friday night. That's pretty scary because you don't have any warning with a flash flood, and the water rises very suddenly. And the weatherman says it won't stop raining here til Sunday - have mercy!

Well, I hear the thunder roaring and the rain startin up again - at least I finally got all my e-mail answered  - so I will sign off.

If I don't post tomorrow, it's because we are either flooded out, lost power or both.

Send a prayer up for us here in the Midwest - we are downing in rain!