The dreaded Friday 13th.
 

Well tomorrow we are expecting a direct hit in this area from Hurricane Charley. Happily, the Hurricane is only likely to be a category 1 so hopefully damage will be minimal. Anyone else expecting less than a good day?:( Bazf, you must be in its path also eh?

Re: The dreaded Friday 13th.
 

Heres hoping all turns out OK for y'all in Florida. I suppose you must be sort of used to these phenomena though - if one can get used to such things.

I love the quant names given to these destructive beasts.....wouldnt something like Hurricane Lucifer be more appropriate?!

Re: The dreaded Friday 13th.
 

Good luck John,baton down.

Re: The dreaded Friday 13th.
 

Expecting a good day, as it's my day off and we are hoping to go out for the day. Currently looking at the Museum of film and Photography in Bradford as our destination. I don't have any superstitions about friday 13th as bad things happen to me on any day of the year.:)

Good luck John W and Bazf with the hurricaine, hope you've battened down the hatches. Let us know that you're ok.:emotion-3

Re: The dreaded Friday 13th.
 

:rose8:I think we may be in its path but it looks like it may go to the south of us, if it gets close I will be heading to the mother in laws in Vero Beach, which is worse Hurricane:eek: or Mother in Law :( Oh well lifes a challenge:) I use this program at work and it shows a weather pattern, you can also zoom in and add towns etc.
It has just been upgraded to a 2 with winds over 100mph. Stay safe JW.


http://www.intellicast.com/Local/USL...=none&pid=none

http://www.intellicast.com/Local/USN...=none&pid=none

Re: The dreaded Friday 13th.
 

You too Bazf.

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Best of luck chaps, let us know when it's all over.

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All the best John, don't do ow't daft. If you can some blow by blow detail would be welcome. Take care mate.

Re: The dreaded Friday 13th.
 

Lettie - you think nothing bad can happen? You're planning to go to Yorkshire - what could be worse?

Hope all is safe for you guys in Florida.

Re: The dreaded Friday 13th.
 

:rose8: I think its safer in a hurricane then in Yorkshire, just think funny accents that your not going to understand and if you drop a penny you might start a riot, give me a Hurricane any day.:)

Re: The dreaded Friday 13th.
 

Getting back to the original thread. (hope ya'lls well in Hurricane Alley)

Does anybody know the origin of why Friday the 13th is known as a bad-luck day??

Re: The dreaded Friday 13th.
 

From what I remember it used to be a seafaring tradition that no ship would set sail on Friday the 13th because only bad luck would come to a voyage that began on that day.

Re: The dreaded Friday 13th.
 

Origin of friday 13th...

Found this on Yahoo's 'ask' section re Friday 13th.

Western culture has considered Friday the 13th particularly unlucky for hundreds of years. The sixth day of the week has often been considered unlucky, as has the number 13. The combination, which occurs one to three times a year, leads to the inevitable superstition.

• Some say the number 13 was purposely vilified by the priests of patriarchal religions because it represented femininity. Thirteen corresponded to the number of lunar (menstrual) cycles in a year, and the number was revered in prehistoric goddess-worshipping cultures.
  
• Hindus believed that it was unlucky for 13 people to gather in one place. This conviction was shared by the ancient Scandinavians.
  
• Many biblical events of negative import supposedly occurred on a Friday, including the ejection of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, the start of the Great Flood, and the crucifixion of Jesus.

Like many legends and superstitions, the origin of Friday the 13th will always be subject to speculation. In the end, we take all the theories with a grain of salt (thrown over our left shoulder, of course). :)

Re: The dreaded Friday 13th.
 

The one I heard and read about went back to the 1300's, and was the treachery of the Pope and Phillip the Fair (King of France) who were both broke and envied the power and riches of the Knights Templars. So they organised a take over by raiding (simultaineously) and taking over the Templars castles and riches. All this was to be carried out in secret and commenced on Friday the 13th, sometime in 1326? or so.

This was carried out with great effect throughout most of Europe, and thousands of templars were murdered or captured and tortured (mainly to death). Their wealth was confiscated, and naturally went to the Pope and Phillip.

It was regarded as the greatest day of infamy in history and all were warned to beware on Friday the 13th!!

Good job I watched out to-day as I nearly had an accident on the way to work (women drivers...!!)

Re: The dreaded Friday 13th.
 

Just as an update on the situation for anyone interested. The Hurricane is expected to make landfall around the Tampa Bay area at around 8 pm. tonight. The winds are now expected to be almost 120 mph. making it very nearly a category four hurricane, very dangerous indeed. I know that most of the coastal areas around Tampa are being evacuated and also the lower Florida Keys. Downtown Tampa is expected to take flooding with seas being 12 to 16 feet over normal. I believe that almost one million people are under mandatory evacuation today and the State Governor has called a state of emergency.
Charley will then travel across the state and will make a direct hit on this area at around 2 am. Saturday morning. It will have disipated somewhat from its original state due to crossing the peninsula. Unfortunately, with Florida being so flat the disipation will be minimal. Mountain ranges are the best thing for disorganising hurricanes. The winds are still expected to be in the 85-100 mph range when it arrives in St. Augustine.
The main body of yesterday's storm Bonnie, passed us by, but unfortunately produced some very dangerous thunderstorms on the fringes and they spawned some tornadoes in our area. Many trees were uprooted and people unfortunate enough to be caught out driving had their cars flipped over by the force of the winds. Very worrying, as the winds measured in the Tornadoes were around 85 mph. and we are expecting worse than that overnight. I will be leaving work early today to go home and batten down the hatches. I expect to live to tell the tale and will give a "blow by blow" (pun intended) commentary on Monday, all being well.

Re: The dreaded Friday 13th.
 

Keep safe JohnW and Bazf, hope all goes okay.

Re: The dreaded Friday 13th.
 

Hope the big bad wolf does not blow down your house john, take care.

Re: The dreaded Friday 13th.
 

Its 11.00am and every thing is quite, we are expecting the Hurricane to hit at about 5pm. I am in a non-evacuation area so we decided to sit it out instead of trying to cope with about 300,000 people moving along the highways,(Its a standing joke in the USA that the drivers in Florida are the worst in the world). We are expecting the electricity to be off for about 48hrs and the water should be off for the same amount of time. So I will be hitting the Accyweb/Stanley site first thing to see how the mighty reds did at the start of the season a good win I hope. So I will sign off now and do some Hurricane prep, buy beer etc.. hope to be able to talk to you all after this is all over.
http://www.tbo.com/

Re: The dreaded Friday 13th.
 

Good to you mate, you to John.

Re: The dreaded Friday 13th.
 

hope all is ok for you all over there //

Re: The dreaded Friday 13th.
 

good luck over the weekend, take care guys xxx

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If it floods, don't shelter in the cellar, whatever you do.

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Good luck, guys. Look at it this way, it could be worse - you could be waiting out a hurricane in Yorkshire!

Re: The dreaded Friday 13th.
 

GOOD LUCK.
Sure all will be well.

Re: The dreaded Friday 13th.
 

Friday the 13th? Yah-boo-sucks.

If all Friday's of this unfortunate date are so good, bring 'em on. I've had a wonderful time in deepest, darkest Yorkshire, with Lettie. Maybe Friday's revenge was getting midged to death on Hebden Bridge station, whilst waiting for the last train back to Accy. :)

Re: The dreaded Friday 13th.
 

Hope the two of you (plus family and friends) in Florida are safe and suffer no permanent damage.

Had a great day visiting the Shuttleworth Collection (aircraft) and Birds of Prey. Nothing bad happened at all, which for us makes a pleasant change.

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Well everything went ok and it missed Tampa, it veered off and took out Disney/central Florida and not to many people injured or killed.

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Looks like quite a lot of damage there. It must be awful for people who were evacuated to come home and find everything destroyed.

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I think most of us have followed the news over here Bazf, we haven't heard from John yet I don’t think, I can only say thank god you’re ok. We can only dream of what it’s like to live through such devastation and carnage.

Re: The dreaded Friday 13th.
 

Thanks for all your thoughts and good whishes I'm sure it helped, here are some more photos.

Re: The dreaded Friday 13th.
 

Difficult to describe your photos as they speak for them selves.
Hard to imagine what it must have been like for every one involved over there.
Our appreciation goes out to you here at accyweb for giving us an exclusive insight as to how it was.
Thanks.

Re: The dreaded Friday 13th.
 

I think Len speaks for us all here at Accyweb.
Thanx Baz.

Re: The dreaded Friday 13th.
 

Welcome back Baz, it's good to hear that you came through it OK. I hope that John has too. The pictures are tremendous. I was in London during the hurricane in 1986. That was pretty scary, but the damage was nothing compared to what happened where you are. Best wishes, mate!

Re: The dreaded Friday 13th.
 

as anne says len speaks for us all here on accyweb glad you & your family are ok, hope jw is as well, are prayers were with you all over there.

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The pictures are horrendous Bazf, glad you are safe. Hope John W checks in later and is alright. This is very worrying.

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Let's hope it's only lack of power supply that is preventing JohnW from posting.

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Glad to hear you are OK Bazf. I expect that telecommunications would have been hit hard and that we should hear from JohnW in the next couple of days fingers crossed.

Re: The dreaded Friday 13th.
 

Hi y'all from murky Florida,

Well, like Bazf, we dodged the bullet. The hurricane went offshore over Daytona Beach which is about 70 miles South of where I live. The strongest winds in a hurricane are on the South East side so we missed the worst of it. I don't think that any gusts were recorded much over 40 mph in our area although it was worse for people living right on the beach, we are about 20 minutes away. Thank you for all of your good wishes, we had no damage at all to our house and we are fine. There's another one on its way over the Atlantic at the minute, lets hope it turns North prior to entering US airspace.

Re: The dreaded Friday 13th.
 

glad you & the family are ok , hope the next one misses too

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Nice to have you back John...............all the best

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Glad you both are o.k, after seeing all the damage i will not call accy again.

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Half the problem with damage to housing here is that there are a lot of prefabricated buildings that are called 'mobile homes.' A lot of the snowbirds own them. They live in the northern part of the US but come down in the wintertime to escape the snow etc. There are a considerable amount of families living in these types of houses all year round though. These are, of course, unable to stand up to high winds such as are generated by a hurricane. Having said that, conventional dwellings are not built like British homes, most of them being just wooden framed houses. Mind you, they are built very quickly and less expensively than those in Britain. To my mind however, you would think that in a State which is prone to hurricanes they would try to build housing which would withstand the high winds.

Re: The dreaded Friday 13th.
 

John.The fact that Florida as a hurricane season does the state not provide hurricane
shelters,underground facilties for example were people could collectively group to
be safe such as we had during the war?.

Re: The dreaded Friday 13th.
 

There are no cellars to buildings in Florida as a general rule. The place is really built on swampland and there is much water not too far down. The only chance you have is to go into what is termed a hurricane safe building. Things,like schools,are built to special codes which (they say, whoever 'they' are) can withstand hurricane force winds. These shelters are opened with volunteer helpers whenever a hurricane approaches. Most people who live in prefabricated buildings and people living on the barrier islands are then advised to go to the shelters until the storm passes.

The biggest problem with conventionally built houses is having the windows blow out or get broken by flying debris. Then the high winds can come inside and are apt to take off the roof, of course, it's really all over for the house then. Some houses have metal storm shutters fitted which can cover all the exposed glass of the house as the storm approaches. This certainly make the house a much safer place to be. I have already requested a company who supplies and fits these to come and give us a quotation. :cool:

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Good to have you back in one piece mate!

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Thank you A-B.

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Gald you and your family are safe John W. You had us worried there.:)

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Thank you too Lettie.

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Good to see you made it JW, found some more photos.

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Cheers Bazf, glad to see that you are OK also.

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Glad you both made it through ok hope the rest of your family and friends did also.

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Thank you Sara, all my family here are fine, we suffered no ill effects at all.