Well, things seem to have taken a turn for the worse here for Team Ernie, and I mean that in the literal sense. For the last two weeks, all the models predicted Hurricane Irma (and its storm surge) would pass well east of us, coming shore near Miami and following up the eastern coast of Florida. Run from water but hide from wind, as the saying goes. And so that's what happened... everyone on the east coast evacuated north, and those of us on the west coast just hunkered down and prepared for a few weeks without utilities. And then last night -- last fucking night with less than 36 hours to go -- the whole thing flip flopped and now we're in the bullzeye.
I know what you're thinking, "Get in your car and run!" Unfortunately, it's way too late for that. I know that sounds crazy and with the storm set to hit tomorrow morning, 24 hours should be enough time to get the fuck out of dodge, right? Under ideal circumstances, yes. Under hurricane evacuation circumstances, no. You run a much greater chance of getting stuck in the I75 gridlock, perhaps running out of gas, and having to weather the fucking hurricane in your car stalled out on the highway. The time to run was two days ago, which is what everyone on the east coast did. This sudden shift of Irma's track 200 miles to the west was, well, just shitty luck for us west coasters.
The Boss Lady and I have all of our valuables packed up and will be riding out the storm -- along with Bianca -- in my neighbor's two story house. He's a retired homebuilder and I can assure you, his house (14 feet above sea level) is built like the probverbial brick shithouse. On the flip side, I fully expect my home (8 feet above sea level) to be completely demolished.
Some days the bear eats you, right?
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