RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Fortress of Awesome Chat So Dave...How's the weather?

<title>

Sorry I didn't see this topic sooner.

We had some heavy rain here in South Florida, but nothing major, it was more the northern part of the state, around Tallahassee/Gainesville, that got hit by the tropical storm. My ex girlfriend is in Orlando, a bit closer the the center of it, and when I talked to her it was a little scary for her, but still just noise and no damage.
The worst storms generally hit South Florida during the latter part of August (Hurricane Andrew, late August 1992) and into September and October (Hurricane Wilma, if I recall was Oct 20, 2005).

I've lived in Florida since Oct 1968, and those were the worst two. Although we've dodged a lot of bullets in those decades. Wilma actually was less severe because it came across the state from the west coast, so no storm surge.

But I always breathe a bit easier after Oct 30th.

Here's a good photo of the namesake of my city, Boca Raton, that in Spanish means "The Rat's Mouth" that supposedly the Boca Raton Inlet resembles. This is the view in from the ocean. On that opening is the Boca Beach Club (part of the Boca Resort and Club). To the right are some beachfront condos.
Further in you see Lake Boca Raton, and the pink tower in the center is the highest part of the Resort and the golf course behind it. The Resort has very good security, and every president campaigning in the area has stayed there since at least Gerald Ford. Bill Clinton was there once, post-presidency, for a world economic summit in 2001 when I traveled through the grounds applying for a job, and I was amused by the angry mob of protestors to his appearing there.

When category 5 hurricane Andrew was approaching, it was headed straight for Boca Raton, then it veered 50 miles South and hit below Miami.

To my knowledge, the only category 5 hurricane to hit Boca Raton was in 1965, that one of the local channels said left Florida Atlantic University under 3 feet of water (if any of you have been there). So yeah, we watch the local news a little more closely this time of year. Technically, hurricane season runs from June through November. But late August through October is when we're most on guard.

From another angle, from the South, looking North at the same location. The intracoastal waterway was built during World War II, as a water shipping lane safe from submarine attack, where the ocean inlets could be locked off. Boca Raton also had an air base during World War II, that FAU was built on later in 1961, after the war.

My father, an engineer, told me that during the Cold War, the Russians had nukes aimed at Boca Raton because of its military bases, and being a technological center with companies like IBM, Siemens and Motorola. There's an aging nuclear shelter underground below FAU, that I'm told some students occasionally break into, and have posted footage of on YouTube.
Bill Gates in the mid 1980's worked for IBM (which at the time had about 10,000 employees) before he broke off and created Microsoft.

We're also famous for the Watergate story. A guy named Kenneth Dahlberg, a completely unconnected citizen who wrote a donation check to CREEP (Committee to Re-Elect the President) in 1972, his donation check was cashed, and the sequential bills were found in the pockets of the Watergate burglars. "Deep Throat" told Woodward and Bernstein to "follow the money", and the trail led to Dahlberg who lived in Boca Raton, and established a connection between CREEP and the Watergate burglars.

Daniel Keyes, writer of the S-F novella, and later the book, Flowers For Algernon, also lived in Boca Raton, until his recent death.