(my apologies to Dexy’s Midnight Runners) It’s been quiet here in the Tampa Bay area just under three months into the 2011 hurricane season, but it looks like Irene might give us our first tropical storm soaking next weekend. We’ll be keeping an eye on her for sure as the week progresses.
Hurricane Season 2011
It’s time for the 2011 hurricane season. 15 named storms are predicted this year, but let’s hope it’s quiet like last year: 2010′s historic season had a total of 19 named storms and ranks as the third most active season on record, but there was little impact on the United States coastline. Twelve of these [...]
Time for the 2010 hurricane season
This past Memorial Day weekend, in addition to the national tradition of grilling out, we also followed our own family tradition of re-stocking the supply closet in preparation for the 2010 hurricane season, which starts today. Let’s hope it doesn’t rain oil anywhere this year.
First named storm of 2009
It’s been a slow start to the 2009 hurricane season … we’re halfway through August and just now have the first named storm, Ana. Of course back in 2004, we had Charley in mid-August and then were hunkering down for Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne in quick succession in September, so it can ramp up quickly! [...]
Hurricane prep
The 2009 hurricane season starts on Monday so we spent some time today re-stocking our hurricane closet. What, you don’t have a closet in your house dedicated to hurricane supplies? Well, you can’t be too prepared here on the Gulf coast. Should we ever need to evacuate all we need to do is throw all [...]
The DTV switchover in hurricane country
So the original February 17th deadline for the digital TV switchover has come and gone but only a handful of stations have shut off their analog signals thanks to the DTV Delay Act. Is everyone confused yet? One thing I don’t think a lot of people here in hurricane country have thought of (even myself, [...]
Finally got to use my circular saw
The day before Hurricane Charley hit back in 2004, I cut plywood sheets to protect all of our windows using my tiny jigsaw (which is all I had at the time), and it took forever: But now that our new impact-resistant hurricane windows are in (partially paid for by the state of Florida thanks to [...]
Down(pour) and out in the Magic Kingdom
We’re in Orlando this weekend for our annual Labor Day mini-vacation at Walt Disney World. The day started out great: blue sky, white clouds, nice temperature. We got up early and headed over the Disney’s Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM Studios) since it opened an hour earlier for resort guests. Once inside, we made a bee-line [...]
“Snow day” in August
Luckily Fay is going to track to the east of us today, but last night Pinellas county cancelled the first day of school to be on the safe side. So my daughter has to wait one more day to start the second grade. Right now it’s just cloudy and stormy looking outside. The Tampa Bay [...]
Here we go!
Looks like Fay is making a bee-line for the Tampa Bay area! This just figures since our new hurricane windows for the house aren’t scheduled to install for another two weeks. I might have to get the plywood out one last time …
