FiberTribe

Landfall at Last

Frances is finally going to ground, making landfall at Juno Beach in Palm Beach County about an hour and a half north of Miami. This has been THE strangest hurricane ever. It has been stalled just offshore for most of the day, torturing everyone. The eyewall feeder bands are coming across the coast from approximately Ft. Lauderdale up to Stuart, Florida. Frances has weakened from about 145 mph to 105 mph but it is still a very powerful storm. As it has weakened it has grown in size. The eye is now 60 miles across. Which means at a forward motion of at best 5 mph, it will take 12 hours to pass over and therefore 12 more hours before the much bigger back side of the hurricane hits us. In Miami we are getting steady winds at around 30-40 mph with gusts up to 75 mph which is hurricane force. Lots of trees down, branches strewn, powerlines down and power outages. So far I still have power though there have been several brief outages.
It's wild. Palm Beach and Martin counties are going to go through at least 18 hours of hurricane. Not pretty. And then the storm will cut across the state, whack the Big Bend and then the Panhandle of the state. Even the Keys have gotten tropical storm force winds with the trailing feeder bands down below the storm.
We all have cabin fever down here since we've been boarded up since Thursday afternoon. I cannot imagine what people with small children are doing.
To all those who have been sending prayers and light, thank you and please keep sending. It ain't over yet.
On a lighter note, there's been LOTS of good knitting time. I'm almost done with the front of Carla. I'm even getting sick of knitting (ack! heresy!) if you can imagine such a thing. Cabin fever cubed...I've lived through 12-18 hour blizzards but at least you can go out into those, if briefly. Can't do that in hurricanes, it's too dangerous because of flying debris. Even if you could stand up against the wind. Our majorly sick amusement right now is watching the idiot reporters, too dumb to get under cover, get knocked to the ground by wind gusts. And if I hear one more politico pontificating on how much he's gonna do for us after the storm, I might just lose it. It's put up and please shut up time.
But for those of you with loved ones down here, please rest easy, this is not so far the kind of storm that kills people unless they do something VERY foolish like live in a mobile home and fail to evacuate.
More tomorrow, Frances and Florida Power and Light willing...

Warning, Warning...

We are now on hurricane warning which means hurricane force winds within 24 hours. Back to the orifice to close up shop then back home to put up the hurricane shutters and take everything into the house. Then if I'm not dead of exhaustion, help friends do the same and then scout out a propane campstove, a few battery operated fans and a portable, battery-operated mini-TV. Sound like fun???
heh. at least I'll have plenty of knitting time...problem is that I don't feel like knitting when the temperature in my shuttered up house rises into the high 80s once the power (and A/C) go out. Good thing Carla is cotton tape, yes?
I am sooo not looking forward to this hurricane. When I was a kid it was fun. I'd get to stay up all night and listen to the wind make the screen door scream. If you've never heard it, it sounds exactly like a man screaming. For hours... but when the hurricane is really, really big, like this one, it sounds like a tornado or a freight train and is much scarier.
The worst part is that the forward speed of the storm is slowing down so that it will linger over us for much longer. This is potentially the most devastating aspect of the storm. Andrew moved very quickly and yet it leveled EVERYTHING and I mean everything in its path. Huge buildings were gone as if they had never stood. Concrete block bunkers at Homestead Air Force Base built in the 50s vanished. It's not exactly the end of days but it is close. Andrew taught us how thin the veneer of civilization is and how ill-prepared the authorities are to get the help where it needs to be FAST.... ah, well. it will be what it will be.
Send light...

"Huge Storm is Unpredictable"

Here's the lowdown on Frances. She is bearing down on us and will hit sometime Friday night. This is a bad one, peeps. For comparison, the size of the storm in its entirety is larger than the entire state of Florida. Here's the quote from the forecasters on one of our local channels:

"Don Noe says that Frances is a huge storm, measuring 350 miles from the northernmost to southernmost points. Hurricane force winds extend 80 miles out from the eye of the storm. That's about twice the width of Hurricane Charley, which struck South Florida's west coast in August. Tropical storm force winds extend out at least 185 miles from the eye of Frances."

Wish us luck, we're going to need it.

Deja Vu All Over Again

Charley is not even cold in his grave and here comes Hurricane Frances. This is NOT funny, folks. This new storm is much bigger than Charley and even stronger. And it has 2 more days of hot water and humidity to build from it's present Category 4 status to a monster-sized Category 5 hurricane. Being hit by a Category 5 storm is very much like being hit by an F2 tornado for 5 to 8 hours. No joke.
To make matters worse, we will not know till late tomorrow if we will be hit. We'll have less than 8 hours of daylight to prepare, board up, etc. For those of you not in hurricane territory, take a walk outside your house into your backyard. Try to imagine where you could put all the patio furniture, planters, grills, toys, etc. Remember that anything you leave outside will become a deadly, airborne missile. For sure, not maybe. Some fun, eh? Who has enough storage space in their house to handle that??? and 5 gallons of water per day per person for a minimum of 2 weeks??
If the season keeps on like this I'll have to change the name of the blog from FiberTribe to Tribe-All-Blown-Away...heh.
I am sooo not laughing.
We already have the 80% humidity at midnight. Effective temp? 96 degrees Farenheit. NOT your typical South Florida evening. The humidity was 53% at 5 pm today, by comparison. It's a sure sign a big blow is coming soon and close.. Right now would be a good time to pray, send light, whatever for the folks in the Turks and Caicos Islands and in the Bahamas. Will update you all later if So. Florida should be added to the list...