Below the Clouds Bulletin

Nessa Brown Interviews from the 2024 hurricane season Everyone was affected by the hurricanes on a different level. Some people were hardly affected; they lost power for an hour and continued with their lives. Others lost everything; they lost their home, their jobs, their car, and everything that they knew and loved. I want to show how one storm can have such varying affects on people. My sister, who was in a previous post, my dad, mom, and my stepmother had drastically different experiences with Hurricanes Helene and Milton.  A corporate bookkeeper I was able to interview my mom, Amanda Brown, on January 23, 2025. My mom is a bookkeeper for a water company.  Nessa Brown: What evacuation zone were you in during Helene and Milton? Amanda Brown: We weren’t in one; we live outside of an evacuation zone. NB: What do you do for a living? AB: I am a bookkeeper, or accountant. NB: How long did the storm affect your occupation?  AB: The basement of my work was flooded, which...

  Nessa Brown 2004 to 2024: Destructive Deja Vu Hurricanes Helene and Milton absolutely assaulted Floridians. These two strong hurricanes washed over Florida a mere 13 days apart. People were trying to recover from the first hurricane when another came shortly after. But this is not the first time that two hurricanes have attacked Florida one after another. In 2004, from August to September, Florida experienced four major hurricanes. Their names were Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne. Hurricane Charley Hurricane Charley, after abruptly changing direction, arrived in Port Charlotte, Florida, on August 12, 2004. This was the first of a chain of four major hurricanes to hit Florida during the 2004 hurricane season. Charley was a category 4 hurricane with 140 mi/hr winds (“Charley” weather.gov) Hurricane Charley was considered a smaller storm but was still very powerful. Over all, Charley cost Florida about $14.6 billion in damages. (“2004-- Hurricane Charley” hurricanesciene.org) Thi...

Nessa Brown Hurricane Milton: The Storm That Caught Florida By Suprise   Hurricane Helene was reported as a historical, catastrophic storm that caused over $50 billion  in damage  jus t  in North Carolina. It misplaced thousands of people in the south. It was  absolutely destructive and put  everyone’s life on hold. (Angell, Gabriel, “Helene Caused  Atleast $53 Billion In Damage in North  Carolina,  Governor Says,” foxweather.com)  But eleven days later, Tropical Storm Milton started to grow in the Gulf of Mexico. Citizens  were frantically trying to clean up their flooded, crumbling, battered houses and clean all of  their destroyed life belongings off of their front yard. Not even 13 days went by after a  historical storm like Helene, and we had another category 5 hurricane coming straight at  Florida.  I wrote in my journal at the time, October 7, 2024, that I was watching the 5 o’clock advisory, and the ...