Weather - 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Week #18

This is a weekly challenge from GeneaBloggers called 52 weeks of personal genealogy history.

Week 18. Weather. Do you have any memorable weather memories from your childhood? How did your family cope and pass the time with adverse weather? When faced with bad weather in the present day, what do you do when you’re stuck at home?

Most of my weather memories in Florida involve hurricanes or tropical storms. I remember a camping trip down in the Florida Keys during the summer where we had to leave in a hurry. My Dad had heard the weather report at the campground store and came running back telling us to pack everything up! A hurricane warning had gone into effect and they were going to order a mandatory evacuation of the Keys that afternoon. There is only one long road in and out of the Keys and it can be backed up on a good day. We scrambled to take down our tent and throw everything in the car and got on the road. We were listening to the radio and heard the mandatory evacuation order a couple of hours later. Luckily, we were well on our way!

When I was in grade school, my father used to travel a bit and there were a couple of times that we had brushes with hurricanes while he was gone. We stayed over at a neighbor's house which was great fun for us kids, but probably not so much for the adults.

Another year we had a dance recital in June while a tropical storm was approaching. It probably should have been postponed, but the forecasts had indicated that we had time. The weather was getting increasingly bad as the recital went on. Those of us in the recital were getting soaked and wind blown as we made our way backstage. We made it through the performances and just had the grand finale to go where each group came out on stage and took a bow. The power went off right as my group was going on stage and that was the end of the recital for that year!

If stuck at home now, I read, go online, and keep an eye on the TV for the weather reports. If the power is out, I switch to a portable radio. The newer neighborhoods in my area have underground power lines and I have to say it's a big improvement over the days when it seemed like we lost power with every thunderstorm.