Citizen Will

Friday, September 6, 1996 - Fran!
Friday, September 1, 2006 - Ernesto?

Fran snuck up on the Triangle 10 years ago. Ernesto is days away.

I stayed up until 1am nearly a decade ago waiting to see what track Fran would take. WRAL’s ever reliable Greg Fishel predicted a hit between Rocky Mount and Raleigh. Even though the wind on Barclay Rd. was whipping up - the rain starting to “fall” horizontally, I went to bed unworried.

Next morning we awoke with trees down, little knowing we’d go days without roads, weeks without power.

Ten years on I don’t have to depend on Greg (though I’ll be checking in with him). The web offers an incredible smorgasboard of realtime sources for hurricane data.

One of the neatest is a “mash-up” of GoogleEarth and “glootons” hurricane tracker.