Wake-up call
Our position: 27.88 N, 82.28 W
Frances' position (as of 5 a.m. EDT Sunday): 27.3 N, 80.7 W, just east of Lake Okeechobee
We awakened at about 7 a.m. to the sounds of 50 mph winds. We're about to lose our pool screen.
The Wife stood on the pool deck for a minute and surveyed the situation from our backyard. "That tree's coming down," she said, pointing to a large oak on the other side of our back fence. "And that tree's coming down, and that one's going to end up in the pool ... "
Even weirder: You can hear the wind before you feel it; you can hear it coming in the distance.
The eye is now plotted to go directly over our house. We'll update as power allows.
Frances' position (as of 5 a.m. EDT Sunday): 27.3 N, 80.7 W, just east of Lake Okeechobee
We awakened at about 7 a.m. to the sounds of 50 mph winds. We're about to lose our pool screen.
The Wife stood on the pool deck for a minute and surveyed the situation from our backyard. "That tree's coming down," she said, pointing to a large oak on the other side of our back fence. "And that tree's coming down, and that one's going to end up in the pool ... "
Even weirder: You can hear the wind before you feel it; you can hear it coming in the distance.
The eye is now plotted to go directly over our house. We'll update as power allows.
posted by rj at 7:30 AM
1 Comments:
It's about 10:50 a.m. here in Orlando, and we're getting a steady 50 mph wind. The rain is coming down horizontally. About 30 miles south of Orlando, toward Kissimmee and Poinciana, the winds are in the 70s.
I'm staying with my boyfriend at a downtown hotel, courtesy of our employer, the local newspaper. I was very happy to hear we could stay there, considering power has been out at our house since yesterday. I don't expect it to be back for days.
The hotel has taken some hits -- some plaster has come off the side of the building, peeling away the top layer as though the top layer of skin has scraped off. The damaged area is perhaps 3 floors high.
The manager of the hotel came on the PA this morning and asked everyone to evacuate their rooms and go down to the second floor meeting rooms. Apparently some windows were discovered to be leaking. We were allowed to go back to our rooms about an hour later. For our inconvenience, we were given a free breakfast buffet. Cool!
Perhaps the most eerie thing for me so far is how dead the city is. Traveling from the newspaper building to the hotel last night, I saw not one person outside, and I encountered only one car. This on a normally very bustling, lively Saturday night. It's a ghost town.
This morning, I saw an occasional car traveling down Interstate 4, which passes through the downtown area. Most were emergency and service vehicles, but a few were normal people. I wondered why the heck they would be on the road. Of course, I was on the road not too much later, traveling to work.
Take care and be safe, RJ, and please keep posting if you can.
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