Blogging may be light--I moved to southeast Florida just in time to have a hurricane pointed straight at me (don't know how long that link will be informative...). Out looking for storm shutters (or plywood) for the sliding-glass doors.

Luck Rand. I was stationed in Florida for several of them (including a direct hit by Opal :o) None of which I was present for... my wife MAY forgive me someday for getting temp assignments EVERY time a hurricane came by :o)

Randy

One thing you will learn from this is that the fine art of hurricane track prediction is much overstated. Frankly, I'd say that we in North Carolina have at least as much of a likelihood of getting whacked as you do. And we're in Charlotte, a couple of hundred miles inland, yet, we got whacked by Hugo.

Take care and good luck! Check out Boudica and Tammi for some good tips and help, as well as networking before, during, and after.

A friend of mine lives in Orlando and is dreading this hurricane.

During the last one, he, his wife, and three young kids all crowded into the bathroom to ride out the worst of it. The kids got cranky, it got hot and icky. Eventually (although I think that "eventually" meant after a few minutes) he gave up and left. His wife said "You cannot go out there, there's a hurricane!" To which he replied, "I'd rather be out there than in here!"

According to NOAA, it's now predicted to hit Jacksonville head on at 8AM Sunday. I'm not looking forward to it. Of course, Charley was supposed to go over my head, but went south, for which I'm gratefull. We didn't even get that much rain.

The wife is bringing back our son from Ft. Leonard Wood this week, where he graduates from MP school. They are due to be back home Saturday night.

It's liable to be an interesting (as in the Chinese curse way) weekend.

Rand,
Put your plywood up and haul outta there, if need be. We have friends who are digging out of Charlie's aftermath, the concensus is, they wished they had run.

As our Arab friend say .."Trust in Allah, but tie your camels!" Those of us who were Boy Scouts are already getting ready to "Be Prepared", please do so in Florida all of you down there.

At any rate, I am praying for all of us on the eastern seaboard. Rev Mike is right we're crossing our fingers here in NC too! Gaston came over us here in Raleighwood, we don't need anymore rain now, not to mention wind, Florida is saturated too, me thinks.

Randy: you were in Opal? So was I! I had to fly down to Atlanta (then drive down) the night before, to be with my mother in her final days. We evacuated from Niceville to the Crestview hospital the next day. That storm ended up Cat 3, but it blew out the windows on my rental car.

Today's (8/31) 5pm forecast has the track for Frances going right over the Cape, btw. How hurricane-resistant are the facilities there?

This will be my first hurricane, if it happens (though I had a couple close calls when I was in San Juan). It's the first time that I've lived in Florida, and I got here just in time...

Fortunately, we just put in new windows with storm shutters (which will probably go up tomorrow). The plywood is just for the sliding glass doors on the patio (unfortunately, there are several of them).

If it eventually comes here, I now have an old-fashioned hurricane lamp (among other stuff). I probably have a while if it has to cross the gulf to here.

Rand, tape some styrofoam to the glass before you put up the plywood. Keeps the wood from banging the glass. We here in Houston have been lucky (so far, knock on wood). Good Luck!

Mr. Simberg -
Best of luck and all our prayers for your safety - we've ridden out a couple of near misses here in SC lately, and that was grim enough.

Mike

To answer my own question: NASAWatch says the VAB, pads, and Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility are designed for 125 MPH winds, the OPF for 105 MPH winds, and other servicing facilities for 110 MPH winds. It also says KSC is nine (!) feet above sea level.

I don't know how rugged the Atlas/Delta facilities are.

Paul: There's an interesting chapter in /Moonport/ about the Cape's hurricane resistance, noting an engineer who volunteered to sit in the LCC overnight as the first hurricane rolled past and watch the wind sensors. Doesn't talk about the VAB, though - it hadn't been completed at that point...

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4204/ch12-6.html

On the 9' thing - I've been told that the highest land in Florida is a spoilheap from a mine, about thirty feet high. I have no idea if this is true, though...

I think the highest point in the state is a couple hundred feet, but it's sure not in southern Florida. I've been thinking about putting together a spoof book called "Mountain Hiking In Southern Florida: A Guide." It would be kind of like the Lake Michigan Whale Watching site.

One to put on the shelf next to "Italian Fighter Aces", I suppose.

(That said, if I was in southern FL now, I'd be thinking about going for a spot of whale-watching on Lake Michigan...)

The highest spot in FL (300 feet and change, IIRC) is up on the Panhandle, on the border with Alabama, not too far from where I was back during Opal.

Yowza, the hurricane definitely has picked up. Good luck, Rand.

Good luck, Rand! Besides putting up the plywood and shutters, don't forget to have emergency supplies such as food, water, and batteries. Make sure you have a battery-operated radio, particularly if you don't have a generator.

After losing power for 5 days after Isabel last September (Central Virginia), I got a generator. Just finished having it hard-wired to the house so I can run the sump pump, freezer, & other important stuff. I thought I might need to use it this past Monday when the remnants of Gaston dumped from 10 to 14 inches of rain on Richmond in just a few hours, but surprisingly we didn't lose power at my house. (Of course, it took me hours to get home because of all the flooding.)

I'm not looking forward to Frances either; even if the winds are diminished when she gets to Virginia, more rain on our already-saturated ground can't be helpful.

Stay safe, Rand. Good luck. Let us hear from you if possible, even if it's just to call Andrew to let him know you're OK.

BTW, don't bother to tape windows. It doesn't help, and it makes a mess.

Don't forget a hand-operated can opener for when the power's out.

And get a Coleman lantern & gas cannisters for it. If you use candles, have hurricane covers for them, or get hurricane candles (Wal-Mart had them last year). We've had far too many fires caused by carelessly placed candles.

Paul Dietz wrote:
>Randy: you were in Opal?

Actually there-in lay the problem :o) Nope I was in New Mexico STARTING my first vacation/leave in 3years when she made land-fall. We, (wife and I) rushed back because the folks watching our house, (modular home on Eglin) told us it was 'destroyed' by falling trees.
Actually turned out our total damage was three roof tiles destroyed and a dented vent cap on a bathroom vent. We DID have three trees resting on our roof... but our neighbors Mobile home was trashed by a falling branch from one of the trees on our house.
(Guess it's true that Hurricane straps/8 foot tie rods and construction of 2x6s and 2x10s help :o)

It took Base Civil Engineering three weeks just to figure our how to lift the trees off the house without wrecking the place....

But we had to leave that place 'behind' when I moved to Utah because the roof wasn't 'snow-load' rated :o(

Randy