Tammi's World

I've GOT to Start Paying Attention

I'm not a dumb girl. I'm just busy. So imagine my surprise when one of my co-workers called and asked if I was ready for the storm?

Storm? What storm? We get 'em every afternoon - it's the flippin' rainy season.

No, she was talking about Hurrican Charley. View image. Well, shit. But it shouldn're really effect me, I'm no where near a coast (much to my chagrin). Then I turned on the weather channel. Well, holy shit. It doesn't show it on the map I linked, but on the local channel, the little yellow line for the path - yeah, right over my house.

Now, when I lived in Bradenton we had several scares and actually had a pretty bad tropical storm hit on 9/13/01. That was the worst I've seen, ever. I'm in my 2nd floor condo, trying to watch the national memorial services after 9/11 when all hell broke loose. About midway through the service I lost power. Luckily I have an old Watchman TV so I went into the bathroom, sat on the floor with candles and flashlight and watched the service. Meanwhile my cell phone is ringing off the hook because I'm trying to ship truckloads of juice up to the relief workings in NYC and DC. With the weather I got trucks that can't leave, trucks that are missing, not to mention just trying to keep my day to day stuff going well. I keep checking out my lanai windows and see the tops of palm trees flying by. All of a sudden I hear a huge CRACK and the building shook. I run to the front of the house and find that I'm cut off. A tree has fallen across my steps and I'm trapped. Took 3 days to get things back to a semblance of order.

So you'd think I'd pay a bit more attention to this sort of thing, especially during storm season. I do feel a bit better since Boudicca admitted she was in the dark about it also, until yesterday.

The thing with where I live now is we get it from both coasts. We are truly Central Florida. That's why we get all the storms in the afternoon. The crap coming in from the gulf and then from the ocean meet right about here. That was not mentioned when I was looking at this house.

The thing with Charley is that, unless he shifts a bit more westward, we are on the eastern side of the storm, with is the worst part. There is a chance it will shift (and put many of my friends and family in the path) but not much (which puts me right there.) They are warning of extrememly high winds, very heavy rain and tornedos.

So, here's the plan. Putting the pool furniture in the garage. Getting some bottled water, just in case. Stopping to pick up batteries. Have more than enough candles, just not my favorite scents, but I'll make due. I did go finally and buy a regular land line phone, versus cordless. My cell phone doesn't work at the house and if the power goes out I need to still be able to make calls.

I think I'm ready. I'll pick up some food that doesn't need to be heated or cooled. I've got plenty of Diet Coke and Cpt. Morgan so I'm pretty sure I can entertain myself. It should all be over by 2:00am Saturday so today is just getting ready, Friday is riding it out, Saturday RAIN and Sunday clean-up!

I know! Storm party at Tammi's. I'll make up some Hurricanes!!!

Posted by Tammi at August 12, 2004 08:43 AM