It’s a beautiful balmy night in Boca Raton. No one would ever suspect that there’s a killer storm lurking just a couple hundred miles off shore. In fact, I’m not sure that even I believe it.

I’m starting to think that this is an elaborate joint conspiracy by the Plywood Manufacturers of America, and the Association of Concrete Fasteners. They knew, after years of “the boy who cried wolf syndrome,” that after Charley’s abrupt right turn, after evacuating Tampa, and sending everyone to Orlando, after which they were hit there instead, that people will disbelieve any track projection, and that they could get everyone on the Sunshine State to purchase window-protection accoutrements by simply pretending that there was a storm out there.

To paraphrase Homer Simpson, here I am, sitting in a motel with my house boarded up, like a sucker.

But who knows for how long? It turns out that the Residence Inn that we’re staying at has broadband, but I didn’t find out about it until a couple hours ago. Then I discovered that I hadn’t packed any ethernet cables with my laptop…

So after a trip back to the house between feeder bands (with an additional delay to cover up one door that we missed earlier), I’m on the air, until the power or bandwidth give out, whichever comes first.

As anyone who’s been following the storm knows, the damned thing slowed down to nine MPH today, so landfall is coming later than anticipated. We haven’t seen much yet, except a couple feeders, with (fortunately) no tornadoes. It still looks like it’s heading somewhat north of us, and the Cape is still in danger.

We’re still in the target area, at the extreme southern end, as far as being hit by the eye. If it hits north of us, it will be a blessing (for us) because most of the heavy winds will be off-shore, and there won’t be as heavy a surge (flooding of the house was the biggest concern, and one that we could do nothing about, other than wrapping it in whatever they put Han Solo in). But the door that we belatedly shored up was on the west side of the house, so we decided to buttress it a little more.

I’m anticipating an interesting twenty-four hours, with (at a minimum) steady tropical-force winds hitting sometime before morning, increasing to hurricane force throughout tomorrow, with eyefall on the land sometime during the day or evening. Earlier is bad, because that means it will hit farther south (us). Later is better, even though it prolongs the agony of the decibels and groaning structure.

We’re in a comfortable hotel room, built fifteen years ago, but if the storm hits here dead on, it will be the biggest one it’s ever seen, even though the intensity has dropped off to a Cat 3 (it may increase once it’s done scouring the Bahamas, in anticipation of slamming the Treasure Coast–lucky us). We’re enjoying a meal (possibly our last nice one for a while) of grilled salmon and Caesar salad and champagne (the place has a kitchen).

We’re hoping that the hotel will hold out all right, but the worst case is that we all huddle in an interior bath (four of us, with no windows) for the few worst hours, screaming above the winds howling through the broken windows. Obviously, I hope (but don’t pray–I still don’t know to whom to do that) that it doesn’t come to that.

Oh, and to commenter “John” in the previous thread? I rarely use language like this in my blog, but fuck you. With sandpaper.

Today is the sixty-fifth anniversary of the German invasion of Poland, which set off the greatest conflict of the twentieth century. The beginning and (especially) end of this war won’t seem quite so clear cut to history. I agree with John Hillen that:

The president should define the goals in the war on terrorism ad nauseum – it will lend strategic and moral clarity to the debate – in much the way that FDR’s Cassablanca conference declaration of unconditional surrender put a cap on what was then a murky WWII alliance strategy. In the meantime, Republican policy makers should grab a copy of Reagan defense official Fred Ikle’s “Every War Must End” and start figuring out how this applies to the war on terror and the way in which this should be put to the public.