MOBILE, Alabama — Winston Churchill wrote in the late 1800s that “nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result,” and that’s what most of us in Mobile would feel about Hurricane Sally if it weren’t that so many people just across the bay suffered so many very real wounds.

The city of Mobile endured more than 24 hours of sustained winds ranging from tropical depression strength to low-hurricane power, but the damage was relatively mild. When Category 3 Hurricane Ivan blew through 16 years ago to the very day, it knocked down tens of thousands of trees, probably several for every block of the city. Sally, by contrast, felled trees only intermittently — some huge ones, to be sure, but most roads remained quite passable despite carpets of fallen minor branches.