Friday, August 13, 2004

Pretty Colors! There is a collective sigh of relief here in the Tampa Bay area and the folks to the south are getting ready to feel the brunt of Charley. Nice suspenders! I felt bad for the local CBS affiliate as they had to evacuate their studios which are located in an evacuation zone.  They ended up gathered around a plasma screen pointing at the screen while trying to report on the storm. Now the threat for us is hurricane spawned tornados and potential heavy rains.  The image on the left is an area where there was a radar identified tornado.  The image on the right is a radar measure of the wind speeds near the eye.  The next area they measured came in at 127+ mph.  It is expected to make land fall very near Palm Island the barrier island resort area where we used to take vacations. 3:27:11 PM

It's raining, but just barely.  Charley has strengthened and is now around 145 mph which would make it a category 4 storm.  It has also started to make a turn to the east which would be good news for us, and bad news for Sarasota, Charlotte and Fort Myers. 1:35:08 PM

It's been quite calm and relatively clear since that early morning rain band went through.  Watching the track to see if it can shift enough to miss us, or at least not hit us directly. Been out a little talking with the neighbors everyone seems to be ready, packed in with water and provisions.  Some have boarded up their windows.  A few have left to stay with relatives, but for the most part we are all as ready as we can be. Made a run up to the convienience store at the corner to get some hurricane snacks and am putting batteries in the radio and portable tv.  Getting some candles out. 11:46:16 AM

The first rain band just went through.  Moving faast only lasted a few minutes. 5:40:34 AM

© Copyright 2006 Rod Kratochwill.