Cindy Hits Louisiana...Greedy Oil Men Hit all of Us

Correction to this post and thank those of you who pointed it out...I don't know what I was thinking...I know the Saffir-Simpson Scale by heart. Cindy came ashore at 70mph, 4mph short of hurricane strength...

Tropical Storm Cindy was near hurricane strength at 112 70 mph before making landfall near New Orleans. Hurricane strength is defined as sustained winds of 119 74 mph. I bet those Louisiana folks were counting their blessings that it wasn't a hurricane.

Cindy flooded streets, tore down power lines and twisted trees in the historic French Quarter district of the Mardi Gras city and left about a 1/4 million people without power throughout Louisiana. She dumped about ten inches of rain on the region on her trek inland.

Meanwhile, the headline in Forbes is: "Oil Prices Top $60 a Barrel on Storm Fears." While it's certain that drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico were suspended and production might just suffer a little bit, let's get a grip folks. This was an itty-bitty storm. Itty-bitty-Teeny-weeny storm. If this is what we have to look forward to this season, we'll be at $5 per gallon at the pumps in no time. (Personally, I'd pay $10 a gallon if they'd stop drilling in our beautiful Gulf. But I'm pretty sure that's just me. Sigh.) Read the story...

Cindy is now just a tropical depression, a term that begins to take on many meanings in Florida at this time of year. But wait! There's more! We also get this fabulous Tropical-Storm-Soon-To-Be-Major-Hurricane named Dennis. At no extra charge!

All the forecast tracks so far say Dennis will hit the Florida Panhandle. But, funny (peculiar, not ha-ha) thing about hurricane tracks: hurricanes don't always follow them. Ask Port Charlotte. So, if you're in Florida, you're in the cone of uncertainty at this point and you can't afford to take it lightly. More on Dennis in the next post...