I couldn't resist a quick post on the fact that the news casters down here are having a blast. Warning! The sky is falling, the sky is falling... Oh wait... they are saying... A hurricane is coming, a hurricane is coming!
Yaa. It is as silly as it sounds.
Oh wait... that's just the news reporters trying to terrify Floridians again. In case you haven't seen it... there is a storm a brew'n out in the water again. In fact, it got named... Dean. "They" expect it to be a hurricane by Friday.
Darn storm. School starts next week. It better behave itself. This is the first time my child is attending Kindergarten.
Another one has been named. Yes, folks... there is another Tropical Storm out in the Atlantic. You can see information on it HERE.
I will be washing bed sheets, the clothes from yesterday, baking, getting a root canal today, and basically getting ready for a 'hurricane'. I don't believe it will be that strong, but no matter what, it can cause limbs to fall off trees and power to be lost.
As much as I don't want to waste the gas, I don't want to go 3 or 4 more days in pain. Yes, my tooth hurts... by the end of the day I am in a lot of pain. Add to that my two boys being sick and no sleep. I'm not much fun to live with right now. I am working on making that better. It would probably be nicer for the family if I was 'two sheets to the wind'... though that was a pun on doing sheets in the laundry and Ernesto. Wish me luck on my root canal and getting ready. Not enough hours in the day and not enough sleep. Luckily Tater is feeling better... we just got to get Tot better.
See ya tomorrow if I have power!
Seems Debby is almost a goner but Ernesto is heading towards the Gulf... What? You haven't been paying attention to the Hurricane forcasters??? Soon they will be 'in your face'... if Ernesto actually makes it to the Gulf. Only 2 1/2 months to go... what are the opening bids on the letter we will get to this year? Do I hear M?
UPDATE: I woke up this moring to see that Ernesto is now a hurricane. Ahhh... the fun begins.
Not a hurricane, but looks like we are going to get a ton of water....
Go ahead and take a look at our first tropical storm HERE.
And I promised to link to all of those that got the picture correct in Art 101... And the winners are (in the order they answered):
My sister called me about a Tropical Storm. After she finished laughing about how I almost superglued my finger to the Steam Cleaner when I was trying to fix it along with all the other accidents (see post below) she told me about a Tropical Storm. I thought she was joking. She's not. Here is what I saw at the National Hurricane Center at 11:50am EST.
SPECIAL TROPICAL DISTURBANCE STATEMENT NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL 1100 AM EST FRI DEC 30 2005SATELLITE IMAGERY INDICATES THAT AN AREA OF LOW PRESSURE IN THE
EASTERN ATLANTIC HAS DEVELOPED INTO A TROPICAL STORM ABOUT 1000
MILES SOUTH-SOUTHWEST OF THE AZORES. A SPECIAL ADVISORY ON
TROPICAL STORM ZETA IS IN PREPARATION AND WILL BE ISSUED IN AN HOUR
OR SO.
Please tell me it is just a nightmare and will be gone soon.
What a season... did anyone mention to the weather that hurricane season is OVER? I guess now since we now have:
I think it's time for me to go and have some hot tea and M&Ms. This is just crazy. I'm just glad it is not headed for Florida.
I thought I would fall over laughing when I saw these headlines on Nov 19th. Only our newspaper could get so carried away.
But I'll be darn if there isn't a storm named Delta out in the Atlantic. She has been hanging around for the last couple of days. I keep looking at the newspaper to see if the headlines are similar to Gamma's. No luck so far.
(Yaa, posting light... hard to type when you are rolling around from all the food)
We went to the grocery store at 8am in the morning yesterday. The gas line was long enough to be getting in the way of the grocery store. Only to find out those people were being directed to go out to the road and get in line. More on that later.
We all went. Dad, kids, mom and half the town. Over all it was not a bad experience. Tot cried and wanted to be held. Tater wanted to pull stuff off the shelves. They were out of bananas, chicken and decent meats. We got most of what we wanted. And Hubby found some quick frozen chicken cutlets in a bag. I'll take it.
They were also giving out free ice. The man passing it out, actually offered it to me. I said no. Just because it's free doesn't mean I need to get it. I wondered though how many were getting because it was free and offered to them. I'll never know. If you want a good rant on people taking stuff for free, check out THIS POST by Bou or THIS POST by Sticks (Though Sticks is whining, she has good points and while there, wish her a happy birthday).
Before we left, Tot stopped crying, Tater quit taking stuff off the shelves. But monkey see, monkey do in this family. While waiting in line to check out, Tot started taking candy bars off the shelf and putting them up with the other food. I think I took at least 3 bars off. I finally told the cashier if she saw any candy bars to put them aside and I would put them back.
Hard to believe it was only day 3. I am certainly hoping it gets better in a couple of more days.
Everyone stand up and cheer:
Not that we watch that much tv, but they only wanted to watch the SAME video over and over and over and over again. Tater knew the words to very line of it. UGH.
Remember that little opening in the soffit? It became a big hole. Take a look:
And I was not happy when I saw this limb fly over my house and land beside my car. I really thought it was going to scratch and dent it.
Notice the top of the tree is gone. I can't believe it didn't hit the roof of our house and take out shingles.
Take a look at the banana trees. Now go back and check the picture from a couple of days ago. Yep, they really did get pushed to the completely to the other side.
This is my neighbor's yard. What a mess we all have.
These trees border my property. What you see on the road is similar to what you see in my yard. Ugh.
The wind was still blowing hard enough to make ripples in the water like wave.
Here are those tree that you saw on the road from my house:
And here is part of my neighbor's fence around her well. Yep, it blew over our 4 1/2 foot fence and about another 80 feet.
Ok, no more Wilma pictures. Back to kid pictures and stories soon.
It was recorded that we had over 100MPH winds in my area. I can believe it considering the damage that was done. I am VERY happy that she was hauling her be-hind out of here so quickly. It would have been devastating if she had been moving slow.
Here is one picture from when the first eye wall we got... notice the little opening in the soffit under the roof... and the direction the limbs are leaning.
Here is a picture of when the winds started to pick up for the second go 'round.
And here it is when the winds really were whipping around! Take a look at the cocoanut tree in the back ground.
Today my hubby is out cutting broken limbs and trying to make sure we didn't sustain any more damage. I'll put up more pictures tomorrow that I took right after the storm passed.
This news tidbit from one of the local news stations (highlighting is mine):
Turnpike service plazas in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Martin counties have fuel but motorists are experiencing long lines of up to three hours.Gasoline purchases are limited to $20.00 per vehicle, NOT per person...
As of 4pm today, Florida Power and Light reports:
Without With Total customers
Palm Beach 644,300 19,200 663,500
Bou has power!!!
Update as of 6am 10/26/05:
631,100 32,400 663,500
This is just scary. The news and FPL are both reporting that it may be up to 7 days before 1/2 that number get power and a month before the rest.
Pictures from after the FIRST eye wall activity and while we could run around in the Eye of the storm:
Notice the direction the banana trees are in THIS picture... in a day or two you will get pictures as the second side of the eye wall came by...
Tree limbs... I don't need no stinky tree limbs:
More photos over the next day or two. And some stories to go with them.
It's almost 10pm and I am off to bed. It has been a long couple of days. I tried to upload my first set of pictures to image shack and it failed every time. I give up. I'll try again tomorrow... but I don't know when. I will be entertaining two children who have no outside activities to do. I will have to keep them inside most of the time until the snakes, ants and other critters get settled. I have no cable. Power, yes. Cable, no.
Thank you everyone for stopping by and leaving a comment. I really appreciate it.
It's 7:35am. The lights are seriously flickering. At least Tater got cold cereal and Tot got his hot oatmeal. Need to fix a cup of coffee before we lose it all.
Take care... see you in a couple of days.
We have reached a new record. Harvey said in a comment that he was hoping we would get to Alpha. And we did.
**Shakes Fist at Grandpappy Harvey**
Good thing it isn't headed to Florida. ;-)
Saw this picture at NOAA and had to put it on my Blog. Take a look at Florida!
And Bou has kindly been updating a picture of those bloggers we know that live in Florida. Take a peek HERE. Leave a comment if you see someone missing.
What not to do when a hurricane might be coming your way - Go to the grocery store at 10pm at night. I usually shop twice a week... Mondays and Fridays at the grocery store. With the storm coming, I thought I would go last night and get the stuff I would cook for the weekend. I have hurricane supplies and didn't need those! Water, can'd goods, bags... you know the drill. Instead, I was going to get a few extra of the perishables. Basically things you don't need when a hurricane hits. Milk (goes sour when no electricity is keeping the fridge going), bananas (they only last 2 or 3 days before turning black), bread (in the humidity with no electricity, they mold in less than a week). But I didn't have enough to last through Sunday... so I thought I would chance getting some of that, along with hamburger or chicken to cook asap. Wouldn't want to waste that money having it thaw in the freezer.
Ready for this? There was not ONE banana, I had to buy 4 quart milks because all the rest was gone, and there was NO bread. What were these people thinking? This stuff does NOT last. Why buy so much of it? Soups? A ton left. can'd fruit? I was able to stock up. Peanut Butter? Didn't look like anyone bought a single jar.
Help me out here... I wanted ONE loaf of bread, ONE gallon of milk and about 9 bananas (that lasts us about 3 days)... Why would everyone buy as much of that stuff as they could carry? It is going to SPOIL! You will have NO POWER.
Ok, done venting. But if you can explain the logic of why they went crazy on those items to me, I would appreciate it.
Wilma is a PITA. I love this quote from the National Hurricane Center on Wednesday morning:
...WILMA MAINTAINING CATEGORY FIVE STATUS...RECORD PRESSURE CONFIRMED BY AIRCRAFT CREW...
Location: 17.2 N 82.8W
Time: Oct 19, 2005 at 8am EDT
Winds: 175mph
Moving: WNW 8mph
Pressure: 882 mb/26.05 in (Record breaking)
Lovely, just lovely. (sarcasm)
This morning I turned on the cold water and ... COLD water came out of the faucet. That means we are finally getting into the Fall season in South Florida. With that in mind... Go AWAY Tropical StormHurricane Wilma.
Can you believe it? Cold Water and we still get a storm.
Update: She is now a Hurricane. Ugh.
It's here. Hold on to your hats.
Ok, Tammi... we made it up to your name. Now exactly what are you planning on having your namesake do?
Just couldn't resist. I saw THIS POST at Random Fate and had to share it. Jack takes the time to show us the mathematics involved in Hurricane strength.
A two degree Fahrenheit increase in water temperature could DOUBLE the energy of a weak hurricane even if only 0.1% of the additional energy available is absorbed by the tempest.All of a sudden, that two degree increase ain’t looking so inconsequential any more, is it?
Of course, part of my interest was this quote:
Systems that change in large ways with only small variations in the initial conditions are referred to as “chaotic” in Physics. The “butterfly effect” is used as a crude way of describing this characteristic, where the flaps of the wings of a butterfly in China can result in a hurricane in the Atlantic.
Which reminded me of a book my mom got me to read on the Chaos theory. If you have never read anything on Chaos, you really should. I feel it applies to my life almost every day. ;-)
But take the time to read Jack's post and realize why most of us in Florida are always worried when a Hurricane comes by and how they can't truly predict exactly how strong, how big it will be, or where it will come into land. Chaos.
As of tonight: Tink had no damage and has power. Mom stayed at Shorty's. Shorty has no damage but no power. They saw the power crews in her neighborhood, so hopefully they will have power within a day or two. Mom's house did great. They went to it today and saw that the last tree is still standing. Phew. It was leaning and we weren't sure if it would go down or not. Mom's neighborhood does not have power either. Since the generators are at Shorty's house, she'll be staying there.
If you went to the Pensacola News Journal website, you would see the long lines for gas. Hard to believe people are already out and trying to get more gas. It's only been one day. The best part, is most everyone was prepared and it went through quickly.
Thank you again for all your prayers, good wishes and good thoughts. {{hugs}}
There are some pictures already posted at the Pensacola News Journal. Click HERE to see them.
The one that really got to me was the squirrel. Odd, but it suddenly hit me how badly the wildlife must be suffering. I saw it after Ivan and I cannot imagine what it is going to be like now. The people, the animals, the environment.