Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Matthew Updates - Cantore

The saying around here goes...
It's nothin' to worry about.

Unless Jim Cantore (Weather Channel)
comes to town.


He checked into a local hotel here 
in Melbourne yesterday.

*Cue scary music...


Yup, that's us.
Under the purple stuff.

We expect the airport will be closed Friday.
We have hotel reservations in Orlando
for Thursday night,
but I'll probably let those go so 
somebody else can use them.

We will stay in touch with the airlines
and probably drive over on Saturday
and try to catch a flight out.

That is, if they are flying.
They are saying 0% chance of rain
by Saturday.
Hurricanes come slow but leave quick.
Usually.

Meanwhile...
Rod is at work this morning.
They are flying all the planes to the
west side of the state.
(Or to Alabama - TBD this morning...)
And then once everything is buttoned up
they are sending everybody home.

My company has been evacuating all our
hospitals (we have 3 in town) since last night.
Just got an email.
If you are scheduled to work (hospital)
on Wednesday, expect to stay until Saturday.

They are evaluating all the support offices
*where I work
by 9 a.m. Wednesday morning.
Which means I should hear pretty soon
what we are doing here.

I anticipate we will work through today.
They already closed all the offices / facilities
on the barrier island (where we used to live)
but mainland is hanging in there.
(Barrier islands are under mandatory evacuation
orders this morning. They will be closing the
bridges / causeways to all except
emergency vehicles, so get out, or stay put
but you are ON YOUR OWN.)

Our home is a solid concrete block house.
Kyle took down the big (nearly dead) 
pine trees near the house this summer.

We still have a clump of 3 HUGE oak trees
in the front yard, but if they come down they will
only impact the garage.  
The only thing in the garage is tools,
the pool table,
and the dogs.

Jim, Sabrina and their dog, Charlotte
will likely move into our house
(MUCH better construction than the
"cardboard" home they are renting...)

The animals will all be ok.
The rabbit hutch might lose it's roof.
But they are rabbits.
They can be let loose in the chicken yard and be fine.
The chickens "should" go in their coops
and hunker down.
This is when I appreciate Rod's tendency to 
OVERBUILD everything he makes.
The coops are more sturdy than Jim's house.
(grin)

We will open the pasture gates and let the 
horses and cows use the house to shield them.
They didn't even stop grazing the last hurricane.
*of course it wasn't a category 4...

The front of the house is boarded up.
The north east side only has the window in the garage door.
The back of the house (see yesterday's post)
is probably fine, but I imagine we will board up the
laundry and kitchen windows this afternoon.

And the south east side only has my bathroom window.
A quick piece of plywood and that's all good.

We'll leave the patio doors uncovered.
You have to be able to get in/out.
The front door is SOLID.
But it's also unable to be opened from
the outside.
(We NEVER use it, so we never fixed it...)

We will take the kayaks down from inside
the rafters of the barn.  If they fill with water
Rod is afraid they will pull the barn down.
So those will go into the shed.

Hope for the best.
Plan for the worst.

Welcome to our town Jim!


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