August 13, 2004

Morning Charley.

I took the following 2 shots just 2 minutes ago.
The first image is looking northeast from my house. Beautiful no?

This second one is south/southwest. It's just a little grey.

There is nothing major happening as of yet.
As far as the mandatory evacuation, it is mainly directed at people who live in low lying areas, mobile homes and the medically needy such as patients on oxygen or a monitor of some kind.
Yes, we could go to a shelter with the gazillion other people who are there but there are reasons I don't.
#1. No pets. I have cats who are members of my family. I wouldn't leave one of my kids alone in this house during a storm, I am not leaving Kali, Nova or Christine. They are helpless and defenseless against shit like this.
#2. There are a gazillion people at the shelters already fighting over floor space, crying, panicking, smelling badly and tons of misbehaving screaming kids with parents who won't discipline them because well, there are a gazillion people who would be watching them so they just let them run wild.
#3. If I'm going to die in a hurricane, I would rather do it in my own home.

I know this is nothing to sneeze at people. Believe me, they keep telling us just how severe this could get and that Sarasota hasn't seen anything like this in many years, but I simply cannot deal with a lot of people in one crowded gymnasium crying, panicking, pooping, screaming, worrying, freaking out and driving each other up the wall.
If it gets super duper fucking nasty, I will leave but we are gonna stay as long as possible.
Will keep updating as we go and as you can see Jenni is ready to take over when the lights go down and I will make calls to her with updates as long as the phone lines hold out.
Later gators.
Hmm.
I wonder if we'll see any gators float by like we did a few years ago.
*keeping camera handy*

It's Marks birthday Sunday. He turns the big 13 and he is so frigging pissed teh hurricane is gonna ruin his birthday. Not much we can do but watch and see.