I should have mentioned this yesterday, but I got so wrapped up in “Is this storm going to move, or what?” that it slipped my mind. So, yes, we’re fine, we have always been fine, and I firmly believe that we were always going to be fine.
But I will admit that watching this storm has been like watching a turtle with a bomb strapped to its shell trying to make up its mind if it was going to walk your way or not.
When you find yourself tracking time either by how long it’s been since the last National Hurricane Center update, or by how long it is until the next one.
Damn.
Just . . . damn.
MUCH delayed, but this candle is for all those in the path of Hurricane Michael.
Today I read someone saying that “excess” hurricane supplies returned to stores for refunds are simply disposed of for legal reasons. I don’t know for 100% if that’s true, but it’s certainly in keeping with similar policies that I do know are true, but even if it’s not . . .
If you truly have no need for your excess supplies in the wake of a hurricane, remember there are many, many people who do, so please do the right thing if you can and donate those supplies to those who need them.
We got lucky, no doubt about it. That in no way means our preparations weren’t warranted though, nor does it mean there weren’t things we could have been done better. (Mental note: Do something useful with that stuff stored in the garage so there’s room to bring the cars in next time.) And while I know some people like to be blase about these storms, particularly after they pass, I’m not one of those people.
Yes, it was “boring” in our location . . . and that’s a good thing (Just ask the people actually hit by the storm.), but I don’t mind telling you that it was a particularly never-wracking kind of boring, and that Thursday was a very long day for me.
Since the topic of the week around here seems to be Hurricane Matthew, I’m just going go with it. We’re still watching and waiting here, but at this point in time we’re looking at a glancing hit that we should be able to handle, so we’re stocked for staying, but prepared to leave if it comes to that.
And while people around here are taking it seriously, it was just suggested to me that if the evacuation routes north seem unduly congested, we could consider going south and west away from the storm and spend some time in Key West.
Upon hearing this, Lala started humming a Jimmy Buffett song and ran off to pack . . .
I wasn’t originally planning to mention Hurricane Matthew again today, but given the responses I got from yesterday, it seemed warranted.
This storm is no joke, with an impressive wind speed and a worryingly slow forward movement which means when it arrives, it lingers. This is an exceedingly bad combination, and I’m not exaggerating when I say I tense up every time I see the projected storm track showing this monster drifting even a millimeter closer to my location.
Regardless, at this point in time the actual risk to my area seems minimal, but there’s still plenty of time for that to change, so for now the words of the day are “watching” and “waiting.”
Just a heads up that this week looks like it’s going to be a stormy one for me, so my entries this week are likely to be brief. With luck though, it’ll all blow over by the end of Friday and I’ll finally be caught up again.
Oh, and Hurricane Matthew may also have some impact on my week.
On Friday I announced that Tropical Storm Erika was headed my way and might delay today’s entry. As of today, Erika is but a memory, having lost organization as a tropical storm long before it reached me, and the weather here right now is gorgeous. This has prompted some people to make snide comments about weather forecasters being “alarmist.”
I’m guessing that none of the people making those comments live in Dominica, where Erika will be remembered as the deadliest natural disaster to hit there since 1979.
These storms, even “small” ones, have incredible damage potential, and that’s why people who understand that take them very, very seriously. They’re not being alarmist, they’re being smart, because they know it only would have taken a relatively minuscule path change to have brought Erika (and her rain) over my head long enough to flood me out of my home. No, it didn’t happen that way, but it could have. That’s the way these storms work . . . every time.
Never forget that.
