Tropical Storm Andrea

It rained… a lot.

The first named storm of the 2013 Hurricane season passed over Gainesville on Thursday. Tropical Storm Andrea dumped a ton of rain and a little bit of wind on north-central Florida.

I never wish for a storm, but when one comes, I get a little excited to head out and photograph the community. I hit the streets looking for anything to do with the storm and my goal was to avoid the “umbrella + background” photo.  I wanted something that said “this is a tropical storm, not a spring shower.”

And for 90% of the day, I failed. Well, I didn’t fail, the storm did. It wasn’t much more than a spring shower. I went all over the county looking for anything and didn’t get much. A pretty picture of the Santa Fe River, a dude on a bike on a bridge and some grounds crew workers laying sod. Nothing that really says tropical weather.

I will say that covering small storms like this is a lot easier in Terrebonne Parish. A flood is pretty much a given and you can always count on some crazy Cajun down the bayou outside doing something photo worthy. It’s a lot harder here in Alachua to find something that says tropical weather.

I pretty much gave up when the sun came out. But then we got a call about a tree that fell onto a house. Thankfully nobody was injured, but it was pretty scary for the family that lived there. According to the guys who were inside, a gust of wind uprooted a tree outside their front door. It fell on the roof and crashed through their living room. They were all able to get out safely and only suffered a few scratches. Considering the situation, they were in high spirits and welcomed me into their home as they sorted surveyed the damage. The funniest part was when one of the guys said while laughing “Don’t get any photos of my sex pornos!” as he tossed a stack of DVD’s at my feet.

Of course, I hate to see something like this happen, but it felt good make some photos from a tough situation. I’ve been covering a lot of sports recently but spot news like this is a different beast that I hadn’t tackled in a while.

Check out the rest of the photos from the tree in the house here. And while you’re at it… check out the rest of the Sun’s photo coverage from the storm around Gainesville here and around Cedar Key here.

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