Waiting for Fay

One of the joys of living along the coast of Florida is the opportunity to see tropical storms and hurricanes up close and very personal. After moving all of the outdoor furniture up under the eaves or into the house and closing the hurricane shutters (big fan-fold aluminum jobs), all that's left to do is to wait.

Although the weather folks have predicted that what is now Hurricane Fay would make landfall somewhere between Naples and Tampa, it appears that Fay decided to visit Ft. Myers rather than somewhere further north.  While that's about 60 miles South of where I'm sitting, a storm that's over 150 miles wide can cover quite a bit of territory.

So, I'm sitting at my computer watching the storm roll in on Weather Underground and am reviewing our supplies. We have fresh batteries in our flashlights and weather radio in case the power goes out. All of our vehicles have full fuel tanks. We have plenty of food and water.

Most of the time, we don't need to use any of these preparations. All it takes is one time and we'll be thankful we went through the drill one more time.