Hurricane 101

I was talking to Mom on the way home from school yesterday and realized

if you don't live in the hurricane zone

there's a lot of stuff we take for granted

that others just might not know.

So.

I'm going to tell you!

First.

The "cone" I often post doesn't really tell the story.

See?

Here is today's "cone".

We're totally in the clear.

Right?

Then we have today's radar.

Reality is, all the fun stuff is usually found on the northeast side of the storm.

Yah, I'm under the yellow/red stripe right along the coast.

And we will be doing that all day.

And tomorrow.

Probably.

So we won't get a direct hit, but we are getting LOTS of weather.

As evidenced by the dog shed.

Peeled the roof back like a sardine tin.

Did a number on the tarp over the 4-wheelers too.

(Granted, it was on it's last legs already...)

The girls are high and dry though.

This is what it looked like while I was chatting with Mom.

But at least Florida knows what it's doing.

This is not our first rodeo.

All those trucks you see, as far as you CAN see

are Power Trucks.

All the northern counties and even some of the southern states send hundreds of crews and trucks

to the area ahead of the storm.

We were already hearing reports of 2300+ homes in the Miami/Keys areas who were without power.

Hours before the storm was scheduled to hit.

What most people don't know...

If the storm actually HITS (direct hit)

the power company will often turn the power off on purpose.

If they don't, the storm will take out hundreds of transformers.

It's pretty dramatic watching those blow.

But then you have to replace all of them.

It's expensive and time consuming.

And we outlying areas take forever to get power again.

(Our house was without power for nearly a month in 2004.  Luckily we were still in the other house...)

By turning the power off, when the storm is over, they just throw the switch and then

fix the ones that actually blew down or whatever.

But we are prepared.

We have 2 really good Yamaha generators.

We have some solar panels (thanks Kyle!)

We have a mud pump to take care of flooding.

We have supplies.

In fact, one day Kyle and I were talking about being prepared for whatever comes.

Specifically EMF attacks.

And how everyone would be devastated if the grid suddenly went down.

He mentioned that at least we have horses.

I said,

Yes, we could eat them.

He said,

Well... yes, but I was thinking more about hitching them to a wagon for transportation.

LOL

Don't tell Andy.