KattyWilly

Charley was predicted to make landfall right on top of us.  Instead it hit a few hours drive to the south in Punta Gorda.  We used to vacation at a resort down there named Palm Island.  I’ve been watching for it on the news coverage of the devastation but haven’t seen anything that looked like it yet.  It probably doesn’t look like it used to though.

I find it ironic that my folks over in Winter Haven, about two hours drive east from where we are, invited us over to their place to wait out the storm.  We stayed here and in the end they had much more weather than we did.  They lost some shingles from their roof, some screens on the porch, and have trees down all around the neighborhood.  The big problem right now is they have no electricity and it’s hard to figure when it may come back on.  I’ve seen helicopter shots of damage in Polk county near where my folks live that look an awful lot like those down in Punta Gorda.

If they had that much damage that far inland it makes me wonder just how devastating it would have been had the storm made landfall here in Tampa Bay.  This area is much more heavily populated and developed.  And even though we are in an area that is designated a non-evacuation zone, where we live is only a few miles from the coastline.  I have to think that had it followed the predicted path our home would have had the potential to have suffered catastrophic damage.  I would really like to talk to some of the “experts” about that.

It’s raining, but just barely.  Charley has strengthened and is now around 145 mph which would make it a category 4 storm.  It has also started to make a turn to the east which would be good news for us, and bad news for Sarasota, Charlotte and Fort Myers.

It’s been quite calm and relatively clear since that early morning rain band went through.  Watching the track to see if it can shift enough to miss us, or at least not hit us directly.

Been out a little talking with the neighbors everyone seems to be ready, packed in with water and provisions.  Some have boarded up their windows.  A few have left to stay with relatives, but for the most part we are all as ready as we can be.

Made a run up to the convienience store at the corner to get some hurricane snacks and am putting batteries in the radio and portable tv.  Getting some candles out.

The first rain band just went through.  Moving faast only lasted a few minutes.

Looks like we are about 24hrs from Charley making landfall pretty much directly over us.  I finished all the clean up of stuff around the house.  We have our water, food, batteries, candles etc and it is just a sit and wait situation right now.

The power went out at the office, unrelated to the weather as it was a construction crew cutting a cable.  But it did feel kind of wierd with all the lights out and the UPS’s beeping like crazy all over the office.  We were told it woul dbe 30 minutes but after an hour or so we decided to prepare the office for Charley.  We went around and moved all the PC’s up on desks and covered all the equipment with plastic in case the roof leaks.

The storm track seems to be pretty stable as it hasn’t changed much over the last 18 hours.  Depending on the track the storm surge in the bay could be as high as 14ft, or the sorm could suck the water out of Tampa Bay.  It all depends on where it makes landfall north of south or directly over us.

The traffic copters on tv show the bridges heading inland over the bay and it looks like a slow moving parking lot.  They are trying to stagger the evacuations.  Pinellas county on the coast has been on voluntary evacutations most of the day and mandatory since 6:00pm tonight.  Hillsborough County is on the inland side of the bay and has started special needs and voluntary evacuations now and will go mandatory at 6:00am tomorrow.  They hope is Pinellas will have cleared the roads so Hillsborough can get out.

The stores are all crowded and there are lines at the gas stations.  Traffic was a mess coming home from the rink this evening.  There was some rain that was apparently thanks to Bonnie, and many excited and anxious drivers, there were two accidents just between the rink and the house.

Chelsey is over at a friends and Lindsey and I are hanging out.  The tropical storm force weather will start sometime tomorrow afternoon.  The heavy weather is expected to last between 6 and 8 hours.

The girls are both in school, I’m at work and Charley is bearing down
on us. I spent some time this morning making some space in the
garage and started to bring in all the plants and patio stuff. It’s
much easier to bring everything in while it’s sunny and dry.

We are in a non-evacuation area so we will be riding it out at
home. Looks like it will be a Catagory 2 at the least and
possible a Catagory 3 storm with winds of 110 mph. I will go out
at lunch and see if I can pick up a few things at the grocery
store. I’ve already got batteries and we have plenty of 5 gallon
water bottles.

My previous Hurricane experience was Elana back in 1985. We
evacuated up to Cindy’s parents house with our cats, stopping on the
way to pick up Uncle Larry’s cat too. Elana sat in the gulf and
spun for days. I remember the radio guy reporting at one point
that because of flooding Pinellas county had become an island.

“Planned obsolescence – that’s my beef with God.”

I saw this quote in a discussion about kitchen appliances that become disposable because of planned obsolescence.

“We told her how much we love her, how she is now free of cancer and to go on and enjoy her new life in heaven.”

Very sad news.

There is an Angel waiting there to welcome her.

The Redhead says: “Life goes on even if I don’t feel like it.”

Don’t I know that feeling sometimes.

She also adds that helpless woe is me feeling I get sometimes when you feel like you are “doing everything all by myself ’cause I don’t have a spouse or a roommate or anything. “