More Hurricane Hyperventilating

Well folks, it’s that time of year again—Hurricane Season. Not only is it the season for hurricanes to develop, but we actually have big ‘ole Hurricane Dennis sliding back out into the Gulf of Mexico after crossing Cuba last night.

I think that we can thank Fidel Castro and the rest of the Cuban people for helping downgrade the storm from a category IV to category I overnight. I guess it takes a lot of energy out of a storm blowing all the tin roofs from over the heads of a country full of poor repressed people and knocking down all the sugar cane crops while their iron fisted dictator smokes Cohiba Cigars and sips fine brandy in his big leather recliner, watching The Weather Channel.

Speaking of The Weather Channel, I’m watching as I write this piece and they just reported that Clenfuegos, Cuba had reported a 149 MPH wind gust overnight and that 85% of the power lines were down. I guess the Cubans will probably be camping outside their destroyed homes and cooking on campfires until sometime next year. The good news for the US is that the storm not only lost energy over Cuba, but it also made a big jog to the west, thereby greatly reducing the brunt of force to be absorbed by the Florida Keys.

I bet that Jim “The Weather God” Cantori is losing sleep tonight looking at his roadmap, trying to figure out which beach in Florida he’s going to inhabit with his mobile camera crew this weekend. An interesting question occurs to me: “Can you have a mobile camera crew in Mobile, Alabama?”

If you happen to reside in what my fellow blogger Steve over at Hog on Ice calls “the cone of death”—the projected path of the storm—it is easy to appreciate the detail provided by The Weather Channel. If you live in Muscatine, Iowa or Palm Springs, California I bet that you wish the whole thing would go away like the missing-chick Natalee Holloway Aruba story.

Meanwhile, I suspect that the executives at Home Depot and Lowes are gleefully rubbing their hands together in anticipation of the profits generated by selling every sheet of plywood, tarp, flashlight, battery, and generator in North America in the next two days.

What kills me is, other than expendable items like batteries, how can anyone in the entire state of Florida (or any other coastal state, for that matter) not already own plywood, tarps, flashlights, and generators? What do they do with these items after they buy them each year, dump them offshore or sell them on E-Bay after hurricane season?

We are still delinquent here on St. Simons in some of our preparations. If I lived in a house instead of a condo I would have already purchased my own generator and several large tarps. Did you know that they sell a tarp that is 100’ x 100’ if you are willing to spend upwards of $500? With a tarp that size, who needs a house?

Any way, due to our limited storage area we have had to restrict our hurricane supplies to things like flashlights, extra batteries, a portable radio, and extra drinking water. The water here is basically undrinkable, so an outage due to a storm would only effect our bathing and dishwashing habits

The real problem is that where we live we are 4’ below the flood plain. One might think that’s not a problem since we live in an upstairs condo, but we have another problem—Pat’s Mustang and my Suburban. I’ve already figured out that the Brunswick airport is the highest ground in coastal Glynn County, so if Pat’s working in Chicago, and I’m feeling frisky when the next storm approaches, I might just move the cars over to the airport and try riding the storm out here if it is only a category I or II storm. If a big storm approaches, you’ll find me hanging out at the Holiday Inn in Jessup, Georgia else at my mother’s house in south Alabama.

Regarding my mother’s house in south Alabama, it (and my mother and her cat) are directly in the center of the aforementioned “cone of death” for Hurricane Dennis. I’ll basically be camped out today in front of the TV, watching the aforementioned “Weather God” Cantori, and checking out the National Weather Service Website to follow Dennis’ progress.

If the storm doesn’t continue moving westward and looks like it will make landfall near Panama City or Ft. Walton, I will be jumping in the car and heading toward my mom’s house to assist with the damage evaluation, repairs, and clean-up. The wind speed at her house is only reduced by about 20 MPH below the coastal wind speed when a storm comes ashore in the panhandle.

I wish that no one had to deal with this storm, but I selfishly hope that it hits somewhere west of Mobile, Alabama.

Wish us luck…