For those who do not want to see this kind of message on our list, I apologise in advance. For those who sent me a personal message, forgive this generic message, but I am not sure I will stay awake long enough to send each a personal note tonight and I want to get something out to all before I crash in the bed tonight. Several folks have inquired as to how we faired in the storm, so I am sending the same basic message to all the lists that I "own" and manage as well to some of my friends and kin. I assure you that after the hurricane, I will happily delete and ignore any flames. The will be minor compared to what we just survived. We made it through that rampaging Frenchman Geroges or whatever that #*##!! things name was, and our block even has power back!!! We did not expect power for several days or weeks. Spent 3 days and nights at Civil Defense helping to man the phones coordinating the preparation and rescue efforts during the storm. The folks with kids have seen them finally understand the seriousness of hurricane damage!! No cable TV, so no MTV and worse yet, in many cases no telephones!!. Finally got back to check our place yesterday morning. Trees down but otherwise we seem to be ok. A bit of water from an old refrigerator defrosting seems to be the only water damage we have found so far. The dinette needed moping anyway and the livingroom carpet will soon dry. Every muscle I have is aching from steady tree removal since yesterday morning. Helped take 2 off neighbors homes and patch their roofs. Got the big trees out of the front yard (2 days work). Start tomorrow on the back yard.(Severa days there) We got the major limbs cleared at my sons house and patched his roof today. Overall this county came out fairley light, except for the spots where the tornadoes hit. Of course for them, it was a disaster of major proportions. Much less damage than we expected.... still millions of dollars worth. The counties to the east of us and to the north in some cases faired much worse. We were centered by the eye. Fortunately the storm drug the coastline at the mouth of the Mississippi River in Lousiana before hitting us. That took a few miles per hour off the storm and made a big difference... though Keesler AF Base about 10 miles east of us clocked 170 mph winds SUSTAINED. The Mississippi Gulf Coast lives and will be mostly back to business as usual in the next few days. Clean up man take several weeks to complete, but most of us have been through this before. Most who evacuated to the north are back checking their homes, except for several hundred who remain flooded here and many more to the east of our county. Enough of this. Thank you all for your concern. Take care. -- Tom Hammack Gulfport, Mississippi