[at-l] Yee-Hah! (Frances is knocking on the door)

[swampblar at bellsouth.net (Swamp Blar)]

Hi Sawnee (and everyone else)! :-)

Well, Hurricane Frances is proving to be hard to predict with any accuracy
(in terms of sustained rotational wind speed, forward motion speed and her
landfall & path through Florida), as many hurricanes are.  I don't think
we'll really know exactly where she's going and what she's going to do to
any particular area until it happens.  At least Charley moved through
Florida rather quickly.  It's looking like Frances will want to hang around
much longer.

For now, our local officials & forecasters are saying that Orlando (my home
town, here in the middle of the freaking FL peninsula) must be prepared for
Frances to bring us tornadoes, sustained rotational hurricane winds of 75 -
100 mph for up to 10 hours straight (and tropical storm force winds for many
more hours before and after the hurricane force winds).  In addition, we
could get rainfall of up to 24 inches, on top of our already saturated
ground.  So, that would mean lots of major flooding (and lots of floating
debris such as trees, I suppose).  Of course, I just presented our predicted
"worst case scenario", based on the most recent storm strength and forecast
path for Frances.  I'm hoping and praying that it won't be that bad.  I
especially worry about the people on our Central Florida coastline.
Forecasters seem to think that the sustained winds of Frances could still
intensify significantly, when the storm's eye reaches the warmer Gulf Stream
waters of the Atlantic Ocean, very close to the coastline.  I sure hope that
doesn't happen.

Oh well, maybe it's just our turn to get slammed with Mother's Nature's
fury.  Other than Hurricane Charley, less than a month ago, the last
hurricane affecting Orlando was Donna in 1960, when I was 3 years old.  So,
I guess that 44 years without any major hurricanes here means we've been
long overdue for quite some time.  Like the old saying goes - when it rains
it pours.  (Or, should I be thinking about the 3 little pigs and the big bad
wolf huffing and puffing outside their houses?)

Finally,. thanks to everyone for all your prayers.  We're expecting to lose
electricity, phone and drinkable water here any time now.  But, believe me,
we won't starve!  We'll probably eat a lot of foods that we don't usually
eat, but I've stocked plenty of tasty nonperishable food (and drinking
water, toilet flushing water, batteries, etc.) in this house.  We've got my
81 year old mom (who has advanced stage Alzheimer's Disease) with us too.
(She was also with us during Charley and afterward, but we lost electricity
for only 1 day and landline phone service for almost 2 weeks due to that
storm.) If really bad things don't happen as a result of Frances, we'll feel
very lucky, but we're prepared for the worst (just in case).

Well, I'm going to turn off my computer soon (and make a few last minute
phone calls to out of area friends & relatives) but I'll try to "report in"
on at-l again, whenever I get my phone/internet back. :-)

Swamp Blar

PS. I'm another person on at-l who is actually fascinated by big storms, but
I'm really praying this time.  I don't even want to think about all the
property damage and injuries & deaths we've already seen with Charley and
might now see with Frances.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <PUDSCRAWLER@aol.com>
To: <at-l@backcountry.net>; <womenhikers@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, September 04, 2004 1:13 AM
Subject: [at-l] Yee-Hah!


> Tonight as I go to bed, I am happy to know that Frances has quieted down
to a
> category 2 for the present and that the weather station does not expect it
to
> reach a 5 anymore.  I hope it's a category 0 when tomorrow breaks.  Okay,
so
> I'm a dreamer, but who would have expected it to drop down to a 2 tonight?
>
> Kinnickinic
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