I just saw an alert that another tropical cyclone named Gordon has formed and will be wandering from the keys past the western coast of Florida and it reminded me of driving in the Tampa/St Petersburg area when Hurricane Gordon was passing close ashore in September, 2000.
I had gone walkabout in the area whilst waiting for a pre-season tilt between the Carolina Hurricanes and Tampa Bay Lightning and was driving northbound over the Sunshine Skyway between Bradenton/Sarasota and St Petersburg…and it was being lashed by 45-50 kt sustained winds before they finally closed the bridge soon after I started the ascent. If you’ve never seen it…it’s a truly beautiful work of engineering that rises 430 ft over the entrance to Tampa Bay and replaced the bridge that was rammed in 1980.
But when you’re up top in those winds that are blowing across your direction of travel…there were a couple of times that I wasn’t sure I wasn’t going to go over the concrete barriers! Many poos were threatening to leave me quickly which would have been bad for my trousers but worse explaining to the car hire folks… ??
Going down the other side of the bridge was quite the relief (in many ways)!
Later on, I’d do a couple of laps over the Gandy and the Frankenstein (Howard Frankland Bridge carrying I-275) and you could see the impressive storm surge where the water was just about to the bottom deck of the Gandy which is the lower of the two causeways.
Fortunately, other than a wild ride over the Skyway…the rest of the day and evening were relatively uneventful. I can’t even remember who won the game but the arena and the show put on by the Lightning were pretty darned impressive…it’s a nice venue to take in a hockey game!
Hopefully for our friends in south and west Florida…Gordon of 2018 will be nothing more than a bit of wind and rain! 🙂