Storm Fatigue

Well, the 15:00 UTC update from the National Hurrican Center just came out, and their latest forecast track has a big H directly over Melbourne. for Sunday morning. Great. Supposed to be a high Cat 2 or low Cat 3 by then. But that could change. And it could go somewhere else.

The new weather radio we got after the last one sounded its alarm at just after 10 UTC this morning though to announce we were officially under a Hurricane Watch. (Meaning threat of hurricane force conditions within 24 to 36 hours.) I was excited that the weather alarm worked right. Neat stuff. First time I’ve had one. But then again, it means bad things are likely to happen…

The interesting thing though is to look at the hurricane fatigue going on here. When Frances was happening everybody was scambling and figuring out what they were going to do, people were getting out of town… this time everybody is just tired. I know I am. Our plywood is still up, so we don’t have to deal with that. But even here at work everybdoy is sort of blah. Lots of folks are saying they will stay put in their houses even if evacuation notices are given. Nobody is talking about evacuating the whole office like they did last time. Doing a final set of backups to take off site, putting up some tarps in a couple places that have leaked in previous storms, and that is about it. People are going through the motions of what they are supposed to do, but there is a drained feeling about the whole thing. As opposed to a nervous and anxious excitement, the feeling is much more just “oh not again” as people drag their way through the day.

And because this one didn’t shift to be aimed at this area until a few days before expected landfall, as opposed to Frances that seemed like we knew it was coming for years, there is now less than 48 hours until this is expected to hit.

Brandy went out yesterday to load up on supplies in case we ride it out, and if we decide to we could be packed up in the cars in a couple hours to try to get out of the way of it again. And I suppose if the forecasts show it strengthening we might do that. But… first of all, another road trip right now is just not on the list of “things we want to do”, second, time is very short. Roads are likely to get jammed up shortly. We can do back roads again, but where to this time? Or do we just decide to ride it out, risking becoming “one of those idiots who stayed”.

My take right now is that unless it strengthens significantly, or they start recommending evacuations for our area (not just the barrier islands and trailer parks) that we will stay. But Brandy and I will probably be reexamining and discussiong that every few hours. But the point of no return for deciding that is probably early tomorrow morning. We should start seeing wind and rain from this by mid-day tomorrow.

Bleh.