Hurricane Blog Pt 1.
A hurricane hasn't hit this part of Florida for a hundred years, but on Saturday that right might come to an end. We live half a mile from the ocean and are in the evacuation zone - it's nearly noon and we have to leave at 2PM. We're planning to sit out the storm at the offices of DSS, which is a new building and should be sturdy enough to stand up to Hurricane Frances, although it is still pretty close to the ocean.

Deanne is talking to her mother on the phone, trying to calm her down....that didn't take long :)

We went and put gas in both cars this morning, bought about $300 of groceries, withdrew $500 cash from the bank and took pictures of the house, cars etc. We're planning to take one of the cars out of town about ten or twenty miles to park it somewhere so that one of them will be, hopefully, out of range.

The TV is full of Very Scary People with dire warnings about how destructive the storm will be. We're hoping, of course, it will miss us and that can happen just a few hours before it is due to cross land. Apparently all the weather models agree it will turn more to the north and we're really hoping it does it soon. If it does so, we'll not bear the brunt of the storm, the 140 mph winds and 15 foot storm surge and hopefully get those numbers down to something our home can manage.

We have about 36 hours before the winds start to reach us, so I'm hopeful that we can move all our belongings upstairs and hope the roof stays on !

I'll try and connect later and post more.