Notes - a coming storm /

        Not quite dusk. There was house work all morning and you have a meeting on structures Friday afternoon in Westerville. You had a very late but excellent lunch at Olive Garden and while there Linda called from Tampa about Irma. Now a category five and heading towards Florida and possibly up the west coast it is not good news. Presently, Bill won't leave (they live within four blocks of McGill Air Force Base) but Linda is thinking seriously about it. You have told them they all will be welcome in Mason. This would be Linda, Bill, Jen and Jean and James. You are both concerned of course, but it is up to them to decide what to do before Saturday. When Linda called in the afternoon, the stores in Tampa were already out of bottled water. They filled the car with fuel yesterday and today there are long lines.

       1956 hours.  We think they should get out now but it is  their decision. It is already scary and we aren't even there. I cannot imagine a storm with sustained winds of 185 miles per hour and gusts up to 240. It seems to me that most everything on or near the coast would be leveled. They are only a mile or so from Tampa Bay to their west. Linda and Bill just had their kitchen and bathrooms redone in the last year. They are hoping they can get sandbags tomorrow morning. Miami, Key West and Naples are already being evacuated. If the storm hits Florida as a category four this will be the first time ever that the U.S. has been hit with a category four in its history. This storm may be the largest most powerful storm to ever hit, period. As I've said before in this blog we were in the great tornado outbreak of 1973 in Cincinnati. We have been apprehensive about such storms ever since. We had never seen such power, such a destructive nature. This storm sounds like one of those even more so as it is a hurricane not a series of the highest level tornados in a single day and night. Xenia, parts of the city were literarily leveled. A week or two later we drove up and down some streets where there was nothing but roads, sidewalks, basements and grass. Shrubbery and trees were gone, cleared out by county and state engineers.

       Post, boy and relax. Carol is talking to Linda now. - Amorella