Hurricane!

At around 2:00 this morning the building we live in
started shaking. Nothing violent like an earthquake,
but noticeable nonetheless. So much that Lynn couldn't
fall back asleep. Me on the other hand, woke up. said
to myself...ugh...wind...and went back to sleep. What
I didn't know until I woke up this morning that a bit
later at 3:43 the windspeed made it to 81 knots, or
93 miles per hour! How fast is that? Anything over
90 mph on the Beaufort Scale is rated as a Hurricane!
By this morning, it was down to a "reasonable" 23 mph.
What's scary is that this is far from the windiest we've
experienced here at McMurdo. During the "Big Blow" of
2004, we reached 140 knots or 161mph. That wind tore
siding off of buildings, huge garage doors off of
warehouses and blew 40 shipping containers (milvans)
across the road at the pass to Scott Base. Let's hope
that nothing like that happens again anytime soon.