Post Isaac

It was a gray day today that started out with immense winds and rain on my drive home, slowing the to thirty miles an hour as cross winds slashed the bridges of highway one with horizontal rain. By the time I woke up before noon the sun was out and winds were rattling the palms around the house. It was pleasant to be out removing the hurricane shutters and organizing the deck furniture knowing the storm was off somewhere to the north, threatening other unfortunates...

life returns o normal tomorrow as everyone gears up or a return to work. I stopped by the gas station to buy some celebratory ice cream and the disconsolate clerk told me he'd been counting customers since three in the afternoon. I was nu ber eleven at seven thirty in the evening. Boredom was written allnover his face. Everyone got gas before the storm he laughed.

It's good to be finished with storm, and I hope none other approaches for a while.


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All Quiet On The Southern Front

And so it ends, the storm has moved to the north with no apparent damage leaving in it's wake gray skies warm musty air with a cool hint to it, a strange combination like standing in a stuffy room with the refrigerator door open.
We are back on our regular schedules, the city is regrouping after a properly measured response to the hurricane threat and business will resume as normal as soon as possible, I'm sure. Like a lot of my neighbors I'm glad I had this opportunity to refresh my storm plans and
Tactics buttoning up my home. It went quite smoothly considering it was seven years since the last such effort. Back then we did it all too often.

One more night of sitting up at work on regular time and then home.



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Calm Before The Storm

It's windy and raining outside, whitecaps on the waters of Garrison Bight seen through the windows as we are not allowed to leave the building for as long as we are locked down. It would be silly for us dispatchers to disperse and find ourselves unable to return where we are needed, so for as long as this "event" continues we are always close by and able to report to our desks as needed. So far we are doing the waiting thing, as always happens before the storm. Anxiety levels usually rise exponentially among those choosing to stay in town, as the storm gets closer and the wind starts to howl. I took these pictures yesterday from Highway One of the Sugarloaf K through 8th grade school which is being used as a Lower Keys hurricane shelter. In Key West the county Gato Building and Key West High School serve the same temporary purpose.

Hurricanes change the Emergency service response protocols because normally the policy is to send people out on demand to help citizens but when Tropical Storm winds reach sustained speeds, technically 39 miles per hour, equipment is locked down and routine calls have to wait till the storm clears. In the event someone needs fire or rescue we route the request to the respective bosses and they decide what to do, if anything. It may be hard to understand but people trained to respond to help have a very hard time refusing a request from a citizen needing help. And at wages that make the private sector laugh.

I slept well this morning on my cot, and when I shuffled out into daylight all I could see was a summer thunderstorm lashing the city. Situation normal, so far, all screwed up for summer fun. As Isaac keeps barreling towards us at nearly twenty miles per hour I worry now for people Up North who will face the same storm after at least a couple of days of travel over warm waters.

Good luck to them, and good luck to us as long as the storm keeps moving fast and fails to gain too much strength. The slow movers that build immense power are the scary ones.

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Waiting For Isaac

Sunday morning in Key West. I'm settling in to sleep in a windowless room while the day shift moves in and takes over. It was not an especially busy night in the city and today everyone waits to see how strong the winds might be. Quite a few residents will be nurturing epic hangovers, no doubt.
The forecast has varied between hurricane and tropical storm strength when Tropical Storm Isaac reaches the Florida Keys. Indeed some think it may be a category two by the time it reaches the Gulf Coast, so it will likely be worse for them...a category one houldn't produce terrible damage in islands as experienced as these. Most people here know what to do.

Sitting out a hurricane in the police station is something I have done many times before. Its not homey but it is safe so I will sleep soundly before returning to duty at 6 pm,always looking forward to the time we will be released to go home.
Good night.

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Tropical Storm Isaac, Saturday Evening

It's been a rainy, windy day culminating is a breezy night, the streets of the city are shiny with moisture, and if you didn't know the tropical storm is starting it's final approach you'd have no idea there was anything going on other than a common-or-garden summer thunderstorm. Other than the hurricane shutters on all the buildings and the commercial clean-up crews standing by.

On the drive in to work at ten o'clock I saw lots of cars parading around with their fog lights on, as though the light rain were some sort of portent of the high winds to come. Better that than the usual practice of people choosing to drive in the dark or the rain with no lights at all.

Downtown Key West is half a ghost town, the bars open and empty, a few people hurrying along the sidewalks. Tonight is apparently the night for hurricane parties. Tropical storm force winds, around 40mph are expected Sunday morning, with hurricane strength by Sunday evening. All finished by Monday evening we hope as Isaac goes off up the Gulf to damage to the heathen on the Gulf Coast. How strong our storm will be depends on how much strength the storm gains now that it is off Cuba and over warm waters. that it drives forward at 22mph is good for us as that helps keep the circulating winds from gaining in intensity. A least a bit. We keep hoping for the best.And that is the latest track put out by the Hurricane center in Miami.

Isaac And The Florida Keys

Another day another hurricane advisory and the news is not improving. Twenty four hours ago it looked like this storm might be little more than a damp squib, rain and wind and nothing too excessive. Things have changed.

I woke up this morning with a sinking feeling when I checked the five o'clock update. I expected to see a nice solid path over Cuba's mountains, the Sierra Maestra, and instead the National Hurricane Center is projecting a path off the north coast of Cuba, right up the warm waters of the Old Bahamas Channel, which should help the storm to strengthen nicely.

So I got my storm shutters out and started screwing them in place. I put my potted plants into the best protected spots I could and everything not nailed down I hid in the sheds. Our outside furniture we moved into the living room.

With Cheyenne on her bed to guard it. She's none too happy about all the kerfuffle.

Rain alternated with wind all morning and I soldiered on getting wet and wind blown as I screwed in the shutters. The idea is the aluminum panels will prevent flying debris, like coconuts, from smashing the windows.

I inherited the best possible shutters from the previous owner and they slide into the lip at the top and screw in at the bottom. It takes me about an hour to install all the shutters on my 800 square root house.


Up and down my street homes are now shuttered and many of them are owned by snowbirds who keep contracts with gardeners and handymen who agree to look after homes for absentee owners.


So far the predictions call for a category one hurricane though the problem is that hurricanes can slow their forward motion and increase their circulating strength.


My problem is that as of tonight I'm locked down at work and whatever preparations I make have to be good enough for whatever may happen.

My wife and Cheyenne are staying at home for this storm with the company of a friend. I will try not to worry while I am at work. Local officials haven't issued an evacuation order yet and now it's probably getting too late as storm force winds are expected in the morning. In the past the tourist industry got seriously annoyed with evacuation orders which they said killed the flow of money to the islands. So this year the evacuation orders haven't been coming fast and furious as in years past. Officials are advising those with the means to leave to go home and those that stay to stay indoors. The airlines are adding flights to help get people out of Key West.

It will be interesting to see how this new method of non evacuation works out. Somebody always ends up blaming somebody else after the fact.

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