Florida Creekers

[Ken Wright]

If any of you folks are in harm's way from Frances and there's anything we can do to help you ... all you need to do is give us a shout. I've got room to pasture horses, can temporarily store a small amount of stuff if you need and so on ... our house is rather small so there's not much I can do in that regard but this little town has a ton of good motels ... be glad to help with that. We're 34 miles west of I75/Valdosta, Ga on GA 84.

All is based on the assumption the NOAA is wrong and the current path doesn't bring her to my doorstep as it appears this evening. If it does comes this way I'll be dodging 80 year old pine trees........

In any event .. good luck and holler if we can help.

[Kevin Beck]

Thanks Ken for the kind offer. We're in the current projected path but about 40 miles inland so we're not going anywhere. The storm is so wide and the path can change so there isn't really anywhere "safe" to evacuate to. The ground here in the Orlando area is so saturated that there will probably be many more trees down than with Charley. The storm debris from Charley isn't cleaned up yet so there is a lot of concern about damage from the wind picking up the Charley debris. Charley came through at about 35 MPH and Frances is currently only moving at 14 MPH so it's going to be a lot longer going by. We didn't get that much rain from Charley but it has rained heavily almost every day since then. The NWS has issued an Inland Hurricane Wind Watch for most of central Florida from Saturday to Sunday morning.

We lost about 2/3 of an oak in our backyard (pictures posted in a thread a few days ago) and about 80% of our pool screen. I figure the other 1/3 oak tree and 20% of my pool screen are goners for sure. We lost power for 5 days with Charley this will probably be even longer. At least we don't have much in the fridge yet.

I'm ready for the end of hurricane season. I haven't been through 2 in one season since 1995.


Kevin

[Michael Barry]

Ken,
Thanks for the very generous offer of shelter from the storm. Frances is a big one. I think she's gonna do a lot of damage.
I live just west of Ft. Lauderdale and it's been nuts around here the past couple of days. The stores are all cleaned out of water, canned goods and batteries. HD and Lowe's have no plywood left. People are buying any kind of sheet goods they can to board up their windows. I could be wrong but I don't think door skins will keep your neighbors's trash can from coming through your window at 100mph. There's long lines at all the gas stations, but from what I've seen so far folks are keeping calm.
Today I'm boarding up my house, bringing in all my wife's crap, errrrrr, decorations from around the yard, then packing our bags. As luck would have it we have a wedding to go to in St. Louis this weekend and we were gonna be out of town anyway. Talk about timing! I just hope our flight gets out at noon tomorrow.
Thanks again.

Mike

[Ralph Steffey]

Thanks for the kind offer. I am in Stuart Fla. and right now it looks like we will be the bulls eye, I am boarded up and ready as I cab get but I am nervous as a cat under a rocking chair.

[Ken Wright]

from the latest I've seen we'll almost certainly be dodging thos pines also..

The offer stands if we can do anything.

[Roger Fitzsimonds]

Hi Guys

I am north of Atlanta so if you do come this way you are welcome up here.

Roger

[Tyler Howell]

Ken,

That's a wonderful offer to our Florida WW brothers and sisters. My thanks to you.

And the rest of you down there hang on tight!

[Dennis Lightbourn]

Thanks for the kind offer, but the airport on our island is closed! We are in Nassau on the island of New Providence - the capital of the Bahamas. We've been checking Intelicast.com and noaa.gov every three hours and since last night at about 11:00pm it has looked like this storm is aiming for our house!

We have shuttered up as best we can, and have our supplies ready, but what I am afraid of is the aftermath. We have not seen a major storm in many years and I think that our infrastructure will be devastated as most of the island still has overhead electric/telephone/cable lines.

On the bright side, I am a General Contractor - so I should be very busy for some time - hey somebody has to rebuild.

Dennis

[Michael Stafford]

I live in area where just in the last 30 days 4 tropical storms/hurricanes or their remnants have passed through. In 1999 Floyd flooded 30% of my little city of 65.000. We have had too much experience with these storms and our Florida friends would probably agree. I hope you all stay safe and dry. I fear the "F" storms. They have been hard on Eastern N.C.

[John Shuk]

Ken,
My uncle was the parish priest at the Catholic church in Thomasville. I visited him there once. Nice place.

[Tom LaRussa]

If anybody needs a dog-sitter, we have room here in Tampa, so long as your dog (or dogs) can get along with my vicious watch-beast.

[Ken Wright]

dont know when you visited T'ville but you might be interested in knowing a couple of things about the Catholic Church here ... 1. Jackie Kennedy worshipped there regularly immediately after the President's assassination when she came to one of the Plantations to "hide out from the press" for a few weeks. 2. Not too long ago the Catholic church was literally lifted off its foundation and moved about 5 blocks to a new location where it then became the Episcopalean Church. As you would expect in the Bible Belt, the Catholic Church here is quite small and was easily loaded on a truck and moved. It is a beautiful wooden structure and in excellent condition preserved in its originality.

Its a really nice town .... but it sure gets hot in the summer!!! Frances will probably break the back of the summer heat for the year but its gonna be a big price to pay to get that done I'm afraid.

[Chad Pater]

And the rest of you down there hang on tight! [/QUOTE]

Like Tyler said that is a nice offer. Now if you really want to get out of the path of the storm you can up here to Minnesota and visit us.
I'll be think and praying for all of you down there.
Chad

[Kelly C. Hanna]

I sure hope this thing breaks up or turns a hard right after the Bahamas. You guys don't need another storm!!

[Dennis Lightbourn]

I sure hope this thing breaks up or turns a hard right after the Bahamas. You guys don't need another storm!!

A hard right NOW would be really good!

Dennis