Eloise was my very first experience with a cane, at least as far as I was old enough, to understand what was going on. I know this sounds horrible, but my memories of Eloise are very special to me !
At that time I was 7 years old and we lived in a very well made wood frame home which was sitting only about 85 miles north of Panama City, just in side the Alabama St. line.
I remember the house seemed to be breathing, our pine trees were being both uprooted and snapped in half like tooth picks, the pecan trees, the ones that were not being uprooted were being bent double and stripped of limb and leafs, while the pecans were hitting the house like bullets at times. I can not remember exactly what time hurricane conditions arrived, but I do recall the weather being so bad that we kids were forbidden to venture outdoors for about 24 hours. About 2 days after the storm we had to evacuate our home due to a 100 foot tall pecan tree that had been partially uprooted and was leaning over our house. I also recall that we lost several cows due to demolished fencing, a small barn was blown and washed away, and us kids were given a 300 plus foot long, 50 plus feet deep gully to play in, by Eloise's torrential rains.
If I remember correctly,School had just began following that years summer break, and thanks to the storm, we kids were blessed with an entire additional 2 week late summer break from classes. Two weeks is about how long it took for power to be restored to our area and if I had to go two weeks without power now as an adult, I would lose my mind, but as a 7 year old who could not care less about anything but rough and tumble play outdoors and frolicking through the woods, it was a wonderful experience !
I seem to remember Eloise being a classic, Cape Verde type storm ?
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