2012 Hurricane Season Ends Today

Today marks the end of hurricane season, a day many along the Coast have been waiting for since the season began June 1. The season actually got revved up before it was supposed to, with storms Alberto and Beryl forming in May.

This year there were 19 named systems, and nine of those were tropical storms. Ten were hurricanes, and one, Michael, was a major hurricane.

Though many of the storms curved out to the Atlantic and dissipated or were torn apart by wind shear, three hit the U.S.: Tropical Storm Debby and hurricanes Isaac and Sandy.

Debby hit the Florida Panhandle, Isaac hit the tip of Louisiana, and Sandy hit the northeastern U.S. All three caused major damage, with Isaac creating massive flooding issues for some people in South Mississippi.

According to the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, more than 500 homes in four South Mississippi counties received flood damage from Isaac; Jackson, 249; Pearl River, 151; Hancock, 103; Harrison, 16.

MEMA officials also estimate $11 million has been given to state and local governments for their costs associated with the storm.

"This year proved that it's wrong to think that only major hurricanes can ruin lives and impact local economies," said Laura Furgione, acting director of NOAA's National Weather Service. "We are hopeful that after the 2012 hurricane season, more families and businesses along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts become more 'weather ready' by understanding the risks associated with living near the coastline. Each storm carries a unique set of threats that can be deadly and destructive.

"Mother Nature reminded us again this year of how important it is to be prepared and vigilant." Rupert Lacy, emergency manager in Harrison County, said it's important to be prepared throughout the year for all types of hazards.

"The most important thing is that hurricane season really doesn't follow a calendar," he said. "We see the most intense storms in August and September, but they can happen any time. We have to be prepared for all hazards."

This hurricane season proved busier than officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted. In May, experts had predicted nine to 15 named storms, four to eight hurricanes and one to three major hurricanes.

In August, NOAA officials increased that projection to 17 named storms, five to eight hurricanes, two or three of which would be major. Hurricane Michael was the only major hurricane this year, but Sandy did as much damage as a major storm.

Sandy made landfall Oct. 29 near Atlantic City, N.J. It collided with another weather system, which made the effects even worse.

The storm became the largest Atlantic hurricane on record, with winds spanning more than 1,000 miles.

Sandy was responsible for 209 deaths in seven countries. Officials estimate the losses could surpass $50 billion.

Read more here: http://www.sunherald.com/2012/11/29/4330901/end-of-hurricane-season-is-here.html#storylink=cpy

Small plane crashes into house

JACKSON, Miss. — A small plane en route to an FAA safety conference crashed into a house in a modest Jackson neighborhood late Tuesday, killing all three pilots aboard, authorities said. A resident of the home escaped with minor injuries.

The Piper PA-32 single-engine plane had just taken off from the Hawkins Field Airport when it began to falter. A police officer who saw the plane go down said it was sputtering as if out of fuel, and the plane's owner said it struck several trees as it went down.

Large flames and black smoke rose about 50 feet from the house that was hit, according to witnesses in the neighborhood of single-family homes surrounded by big magnolia and oak trees.

A deputy fire chief told WJTV-TV that one person escaped the burning home with minor injuries, but it was not immediately clear if anyone else was inside. One patient from the scene was in good condition at University of Mississippi Medical Center, said spokesman Jack Mazurak. He wouldn't give the person's name or gender or the extent of the injuries, citing privacy laws.

Hinds County Coroner Sharon Grisham-Stewart confirmed three people died in the crash. She said dental records or DNA would be needed to confirm their identities and that the identities would not be confirmed Tuesday night.

The plane was owned by Roger and Michele Latham, from Superior Pallet Company in Flowood, Miss., both of whom showed up at the crash site, along with their grown daughter, Emily Latham.

Emily Latham noted that her father was supposed to have been on board but changed his plans.

"He went hunting," she said. "Thank God."

Michele Latham said all three men on board were pilots. Roger Latham, who is 15 hours short of getting his pilot's license, identified one of the victims as John Edward Tilton Jr., his flight instructor.

"He was one of the finest Christian men I knew," Latham said.

Authorities did not identify the other two people aboard the plane.

"We had three great men who lost their lives," he added. "I just want to wake up in a while and say, 'This didn't happen.'"

The plane had just departed Hawkins Field Airport headed for Raymond, Miss., for an FAA safety conference, just 25 miles away. Latham said his plane had been parked in a hangar for a month and they wanted to take it out for a short flight before he flew it to Gulf Shores, Ala., for Thanksgiving. Latham said he had owned the plane for 2 1/2 years and described it as being in mint condition.

The plane took off at 5:10 p.m. and shortly after, the pilot asked for permission to return to the airport, according to a news release issued by the Jackson Municipal Airport Authority. The plane was unable to return and crashed.

Latham said a Jackson police officer who was about a block away when the plane was coming down told him "it was spitting and sputtering and ... starving for fuel."

It hit trees on the way down, Latham said, adding, "I'm sure John was doing everything he possibly could to save the lives on board." Vivian Payne, who lives about six blocks from the crash site, said she heard a loud bang that sounded different from an electrical transformer blowing.

"It shook the walls of my house," Payne said as she stood among ambulances, police cars and fire trucks, their lights flashing in the chilly night air.

The weather in Jackson is partly cloudy in the 40s.

The National Transportation Safety Board along with the FAA will be investigating the cause of the crash.

Mississippi author Ellen Douglas dies at 91

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) -- Ellen Douglas, a Mississippi native whose novel "Apostles of Light" was a 1973 National Book Award nominee, died Wednesday in Jackson. She was 91.

Douglas, who cited fellow Mississippi native William Faulkner as a literary influence, was the pen name of Josephine Ayres Haxton; she said she took a pseudonym to guard the privacy of her family. Douglas' Mississippi-set work dealt candidly with race relations, families and the role of women.

Douglas grew up in Hope, Ark., and Alexandria, La., and spent summers with her grandparents in Natchez, Miss., where the family's roots reached back generations. She graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1942. She wrote 11 books, including six novels and several collections of short stories and essays.

"Apostles of Light" is a complex novel about the mistreatment of residents at a home for the elderly in fictional Homochitto, Miss., the town in many of her works.

"If you don't have conflict, you don't have fiction," Douglas told The Associated Press in a 2005 interview about race relations and other forces that helped shape literature.

State Rep. Steve Holland, a funeral director handling arrangements, said Douglas died after an extended illness. He said she would be buried in her native Natchez.

Douglas raised her family in Greenville, Miss., and had lived in Jackson for the past three decades.

In a 1980 oral history with the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Douglas said she was influenced by the "overwhelming hypnotic style" of Faulkner, who was living and writing in Oxford when she was a student there at the University of Mississippi. She said she met him once when she was a student and a couple of times years later, but didn't know him well.

Her 1979 novel, "The Rock Cried Out," is about a young Mississippi man whose cousin was killed during the Freedom Summer of 1964, a pivotal time for the civil rights movement in the Deep South state.

Some of her other works were "A Family's Affairs" and "Can't Quit You, Baby."

Douglas won a lifetime achievement award in 2008 from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters.

She is survived by three sons: Richard Haxton, Brooks Haxton and Ayres Haxton.

Cynthia Shearer, a novelist who is a writing consultant at Texas Christian University, said when she did her first public reading of her own writing in the 1980s, Douglas was in the audience in Oxford, Miss.

"She didn't know me from Adam, but she beamed at me the whole time, telegraphing bravery to me," Shearer recalled.

Shearer, author of the novels "The Wonder Book of the Air" and "The Celestial Jukebox," said Douglas was quiet and unassuming.

"I saw her sitting by herself at a writers' conference one time after I'd published my first novel, and I took my little glass of white wine over to sit with her," Shearer told AP. "She held up her glass of bourbon instructionally, and then eyed my white wine sardonically, and said, 'You got to do better than that.'"

Douglas was writer-in-residence at the University of Mississippi from 1979 to 1983. One of her creative writing students was Larry Brown, an Oxford firefighter who later wrote "Big Bad Love" and other gritty novels set in the South. Brown died in 2004.

http://entertainment.msn.com/news/article.aspx?news=773757

November already

With my old laptop dying and getting a new laptop with Windows8 and Hurricane Sandy hitting the NE where some of my family and friends live, I have been pre-occupied.

Our weather has been cool, breezy and dry. But we might get some rain tomorrow.

Our mornings are foggy.

Halloween was not as busy as last year, we only used one bucket of candy instead of two. The weather was excellent, a chilly, starry night.