Birmingham Blues

I had an email this morning from blogger pal Joe of Bessemer Opinions.  He’s in Jamaica with a group from UAB studying community-based approaches to public health, and he and his fellow students now find themselves in the path of Hurricane Dean.

For those like me who aren’t completely sure of your Caribbean geography, I’ll point out that Jamaica is the small island, just below Cuba, that’s smack in the middle of the purple on the map above.  Joe says they’re staying in a concrete building away from the coast, and he’s not worried at this point.  I say send good thoughts their way.

Meanwhile, tropical depression Erin made landfall near Corpus Christi, Texas, this morning, dumping even more rain on the already saturated state.  Fortunately, the storm has weakened to the point that forecasters don’t expect wind damage.  Unfortunately, they still expect storm surge and flash floods.

And here in Alabama, we remain in the midst of record-melting heat.  Yesterday’s high of 105° exceeded by four degrees the previous record for the day, and it extended our streak of 100°+ days to nine.  It was also the hottest day since 1980.  Perhaps it’s time to rethink starting school in mid-August, but my brain is too mushy at this point.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 16th, 2007 at 9:12 am and is filed under Bloggers United, Local Issues, Storm Watch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.