Hurricane Matthew

October 6, 2016
As I write this, the television continues to give us updates and text messages keep flying back and forth with a variety of people.  Hurricane Matthew will hit Florida shortly and is already causing lots of havoc.  Peoples' plans have gone awry and everyone is busy doing last minute stuff to ride out this powerful hurricane - the first in many years to make landfall in Florida.  This is the strongest hurricane for this area since 1898!!!!!! Yes, that is the 1800s

It has been upgraded to a Category 4 storm with winds of up to 140 miles an hour and will cause much anguish along the east coast before it is done.  Already Haiti and Jamaica have suffered and the Bahamas are looking forward to it leaving so they can assess the damage and start recovery.  Many many deaths have been reported in Haiti and so many people are displaced.  The Governors of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina are working on evacuations - roads have been converted to outgoing only just to get people away from the coast and danger that is expected.

We had friends who were in Myrtle Beach who were told they would have to leave on Wednesday. Bob and Harriett are now back here at home after a 13 hour drive to get away from it.  Frank and Bette Foulke are on their way back home from Pennsylvania on the auto train and have had to stop in Tennessee for a couple of nights as it was not safe to come into the Sanford region.  Ken's cousin, George, and his wife and a couple of grandkids are at Disney and really losing out.  It is pouring rain there and it will close at 5 tonight and remain closed tomorrow.  We've seen FB postings about people who have been busy putting up shutters, off shopping for water and necessary food, batteries etc. Dave and Donna Rumrill made the decision last night to get up early this morning and head for northern Georgia in their motorhome taking along food from their refrigerator and freezer in anticipation of electricity going out.  We're put away everything that wind could blow around - outdoor chairs, tables, flower pots, etc. and done the same for our friends - the Foulkes. And we are keeping an eye on the St. Petersburg Airport status as we're supposed to fly out around 1:00 tomorrow to Ohio for our annual cousins gathering in Mitiwanga, Ohio.  Already the Orlando airport is shut down and we're on tropical storm warning status which means within the next 36 hours this region could see sustained winds of 39-73 mile an hour winds.

So now we wait and watch