September 03rd, 2019

Before we begin, I need to tell you that I actually wrote this blogpost yesterday, Monday.  I often write one day ahead because I almost always have things going on first thing in the day and I don't want to get so busy that I forget to write a blogpost at all during the course of a crazy day.  So the way it works best for me is that I often write  a day (or sometimes two) ahead and then schedule it to post on the day of my choice. It's not a big deal most of the time but what I'm writing about today is more time sensitive.  The point here is that, things may have changed between when I actually wrote this post and when it posted.  If that is the case, I will update as the week goes by ;)

Now back to our regularly scheduled program:

Soooo Hurricane Dorian. Yeah. Well. For the good people of the Bahamas it has been an absolute nightmare.  My heart breaks for them. And, as of this writing, it seems that the storm is going to apply itself strictly to the east coast of Florida, Georgia and both of the Carolinas.  My deepest concerns, thoughts, prayers and wishes go out to all of them.  But here, things are absolutely fine.  The photo above I took from one of my favourite spots here on the island on Saturday.  No sign of anything except a lovely day.

Please understand that I am not even a little bit disappointed. I am  grateful and thankful beyond words that the original reports on this hurricane Dorian, completely changed for us. To say that we are relieved is an understatement.  

The initial reports, toward the middle of last week were that this hurricane was going to eat the entire state of Florida for lunch. People freaked out.  It was only two years ago that Hurricane Irma stopped in for a visit and made a big mess of things.  So it was still fairly fresh in our memories.  Within 24 hours of the first report the grocery stores looked like this: 

That would be batteries, crackers, bread and water.  Of course it would.  And I would have said, fine. That's fine. If you need it, you should definitely buy it. That's why the stores carry it. Except that we saw people fill carriages fully with loaves of bread and then another carriage with bottles of water topped with 10 packages of flashlight sized batteries. Full Carriages of one product.   Kind of ridiculous.  Yes, buy what you need, but only what you need. There is no need to corner the market on one sort of item!

We were fine.  Tim and I know how to make do and work around things.  Tortillas work as well as loaves of bread and in fact, amusingly, nobody thought to buy the bread in the store bakery. There was Plenty of that!  Water?  We always have water on hand anyway AND we are smart enough to fill water bottles and pitchers  from our own tap when we know there is a storm coming. Costs nothin'.  So honestly we were set anyway.  Before we set out for the grocery store I said to Tim, "Y'know, there is enough food here.  If it were absolutely necessary we could  survive for a week on what's already in the pantry. We might eat kind of funny, but we would eat".  Tim agreed but there is something about the possibility of losing power that makes us crave stupid stuff like cheese crackers and M&M's.  It's an unusual combo, yes, but we like it.

We passed so many gas stations  and we saw people not just filling their cars up and maybe one extra gas cans but  multiple gas cans. As in, a dozen gas cans!  What?  Why on earth do you  need that much gasoline? There was even a fellow filling up multiple home depot buckets.  Yup those enormous orange buckets emblazoned with the name of the home improvement store on the side. I hope he also had lids because otherwise, as he drives, the gas is going to be sloshing all over the inside of his vehicle.  Nasty!

Consequently, in very short order, there was no gas.  Zero. None.  Not a drop to be found anywhere. 

Lots of folks here abouts hit the road the instant they hear that a hurricane is even possible. One whisper of the word Hurricane and they are gone!  I don't know for sure where they all went, but I have a friend in Tennessee and she reports a lot of "refugees" from Florida in her area right now.  So I guess we know one place they headed.  Hope they had enough gas for the trip!

Tim and I are more the calm types.  Let's wait and see.  

Our more relaxed attitude served us well.  This storm has been such a slow mover, I mean here it is, a whole new week and it hasn't touched Florida yet, we suspected that it's track would not only change (which it did) but also we could tell that we had plenty of time to make decisions. Nothing had to be done or decided immediately.  By Friday, the storm track had changed significantly and  the west side of the state breathed a collective sigh of  relief.  And we didn't have to leave home to do it.

We will, no doubt, still get wind and rain thanks to the outer bands of the storm, but nothing like people in it's direct path will suffer.   In theory, the rain will begin for us at some point today.  I'm looking out the front window right now at an absolutely cloudless blue sky and sunshine.  So no rain yet.  Maybe it will be sometime this afternoon. Or even this evening.  Who know?  

Bulletins as they happen!

Hope all of you had a great holiday weekend  :)