Hurricane Ivan

When there's severe damage, the beach is one of the last places to get power and water.

I remember during Hurricane Ivan, my father-in-law had a property across the street from the island, and people would just keep coming down to his house to look at the beach and grab some binoculars and just kind of figure out, what's going on with my house?

Yeah.

Exactly.

This, of course, is not the first rodeo for Missouri Electric Cooperatives.

They've responded to Hurricane Ivan in 2004 and Hurricane Helene in 2024.

Talk if you will, Craig, about some of the lessons learned from past hurricanes and other disaster responses.

How does that factor into what you have to do today?

So, yeah, I think a lot of people, Greg, the bottom line is a lot of people underestimated the power of the storm, and it's going to take a long time to put things back together.

I saw the damage around there, and you and I were both here during Hurricane Ivan and their big hurricanes, and And, and the damage that was caused by, you know, several numerous hours of that on the ground, but this year was just quick in and out and it caused nearly as much tree damage.

I know where my dad used to live.

They're in the Lake Francis area in Pine Forest area.

YouTube it.

Hurricane Ivan.

It's crazy.

The cab of the 18-wheeler is hanging over the bridge where the water is, and eventually it went into the water, and he died.

You're coming out.

Coming out bigger, stronger.

Hurricane Ivan.

Check it out, y'all.

Because there was an example back in 2004 where the populations went through these really immediate sharp declines after the hurricane that has a name, as hurricanes do.

This one in 2004 was called Hurricane Ivan.

That's right.

That was the hurricane named after me.

That was the worst one I've ever been in.

Hurricane Ivan came through in 2004, and we evacuated.

My family was like, later.

So this was my first one.

pretty interesting.

Well, I lived through and worked through Hurricane Ivan.

That was my biggest challenge, I would say.

Five months after getting on the island, the island was... absolutely leveled by Hurricane Ivan, a strong Category 5 hurricane.

All my landmarks were gone.

I still wasn't familiar with the island, so I had to get to know it again.

From there, I mean, it was just kind of like, let's see what happens with this.

Uh, I rode out Hurricane Ivan back in 2004, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Hurricane Michael in 2018.

I have a lot of experience with tropical storms, tropical cyclones, hurricanes, things of that nature.

I think it's really important from a climatological perspective to utilize those weather markets in a way that is almost like insurance.