I was in the same hurricane and he disappeared two weeks prior to that. I've written elsewhere before, but based on the storms that hit in the weeks before and after his last post, whatever happened was unlikely storm related - he posted around three weeks to a month after the first straightline storm that did serious damage in the region I think he was in, and Beryl was two weeks after that last post. More likely something else. If I remember my dates right, today is 14 months to the day since his last post, so if it was loss of gear or something, that should be replaced by now. The man was close to my age (gussing the "69" was his birth year, based on conversations) and, while mid-fifties is youngish for catastrophic health issues, it's not THAT young for them. Something bad seems to have happened in his life - or he just called it quits without a goodbye - but the storm stuff I think is a fairytale someone came up with while speculating, but not really doing the legwork to figure it out. I'm close by, I went through the same storms, and I don't see that being the cause for his absence.