Updated: Barometer Falling

Update: Looks like we dodged another one. While we're expecting tropical storm weather, it looks like it will hit further South. The last tropical storm around here was Gabrielle which hit the Friday of the week of the September 11th attacks. I remember because the electricity and subsequently the television went off in the middle of the national remembrance. Gabrielle created a block long pond in the back that almost made it to the house. Some very old trees in the neighborhood were toppled. In short, it was a mess. Mess, however, is something we can deal with.


At least, I think it should be. If you look to the east of about 8:30 PM on Tues in this NOAA graphic, you'll see my hometown of Sarasota. We Sarasotans are, like Miamians, a bit jaded (See George's post) if for a different reason. In Miami, they have seen it all. To them, this is routine. They all have shutters, generators, etc. After all, they went through Andrew. In Sarasota, we are routinely threatened with hurricanes, but they never seem to materialize. So although we go through the motions sometimes and gerryrig some plywood, we are like the villagers who have heard the cries of "wolf" a few too many times. Even Charley, the worst, took that right hook about 15 minutes before it would have hit us.



In those days, we were new at this approaching storm business, sitting in the darkness of our boarded up homes, glued to SNN where David Karnes was doing a yeoman's job and was more accurate than the national channels, when suddenly the angel of death bypassed our door. Such escapes lead to a rather cavalier attitude. There are some who say that this was Indian holy ground or some such, others that we are in some sort of magnetic vortex. I suspect we have been lucky.



A meteorologist on TV likened this storm to Charley, which was unsettling. This one seems to be heading up to Tampa, just as Charley was heading to Sarasota. Who's to say it won't take a quick right turn roundabout Sarasota way? Just in case, we have tin homemade shutters that once graced someone's roof, we can press into quick service. And we bought some clips we can use with plywood for the money pit next door. We're bound to have plywood around the house somewhere. Kerosene lamps? Check. Gallons of water? Check. Transistor radio? Batteries? Check. Candles? Check. Charcoal? Flashlights? Somewhere. Gasoline for the generator we inherited from someone who moved up North and have never started? Ouch. The gas station was out tonight. And you need to have those gas tanks filled avant le deluge. Oh, well, guess I know what I'm doing tomorrow. I'm not gonna kid you, folks, it's still scary.

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