If You've Got '12 Foot Alligator Swimming in Someone's Flooded Yard,' You May Have 2020 BINGO

Source - Storm surge following a hurricane is its own risk — but Gulf Shores, Alabama, resident Tina Lambert Bennett spotted extra danger in the surge when she discovered a "giant" alligator in the water following Sally. 

She said alligators are common in the area, but at 11 or 12 feet long, this one was extra large.

"We are aware that we have them out in our area as well as lots of poisonous snakes so we know not to walk out there in floodwaters. I was just amazed at the size of this one," she said.

Bennett said Sally, which hit early this morning as a Category 2 hurricane, first brought strong winds to the area — and then the wildlife. 

"Last night it hit us from the land side so strong winds tore part of our roof off and caused power outages and other damages. It also caused the surrounding canals to overflow and fill the marshlands. Today the tide came in off the bay side with the surge and the water rose so quickly from that side. That’s when our property became submerged and snakes and alligators began looking for a place to hunker down," she said.

File this story away and commit it to memory because I get the feeling it's going to be lost in the shuffle of everything else over the last 8 1/2 months of the dark timeline that is this year. I'm preparing myself for a distant future of boring my as yet non-existent grandchildren with stories of this dystopian hellscape. And I'll be kicking myself with white orthopedic jogging shoes if I leave out the the details on this one. How, on top of everything else, by mid-September we were already up to "S" on the Hurricane Alphabet and the one we called Sally was spitting 12 foot murder torpedoes into people's yards. 

I've lived through the odd Category 2 storm. And while they're typically no Saturday in the park, you can at least feel confident you won't have your roof ripped off and your property turned into an above ground pool. But in this particular trip around the solar system, of course it will. 2020 is incapable of just dishing out a little suffering. Every minor weather system has to be an Old Testament plague. With perfectly evolved, prehistoric eating machines swimming around your front yard substituting for raining frogs. By now we can expect nothing less. 

So best wishes to everyone down along the Gulf Coast that this too shall pass quickly. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to put some lamb's blood on my front door.