Back when we had those 3 canes come in within 6 weeks, one was predicted to hit us here in St. Pete so a bunch of people evacuated inland to Orlando and surrounding areas and it came in south of us instead and headed inland where everyone evacuated to. I'm sure our luck will run out one year but I will stay and hunker down. Every year I stock up on the necessary supplies and when the season over, we use them up till the following year.

We now have Tropical Storm Franklin, but it is said to be no threat to land

I bought a battery operated lantern/radio/tv at a garage sale and got new batteries for it. Checked it out and it works great! I have four cases of water so far. I think the generator needs to go to the shop, as dh can't start it. I have several gas cans that I will get filled if a hurricane is predicted anywhere near us. I have propane for the grill/burner. I have an old water tank full of water for flushing the toilet. Got candles, canned food, can opener, cereal, powdered milk, peanut butter and jelly, mosquito repellent, what else do I need? I suppose it is important to keep the laundry done up and keep extra prescription meds on hand too.

It's been a while, but I am taxing this old brain to try to remember what all I will need. Any recomendations are welcome.

I am familiar with getting trapped in the great "exodus". During Rita, my sister was told to evacuate. She was taking Chemo at the time and didn't really feel too well. It took her six hrs to make a trip that normally only takes two hours at the most. Then Rita, turned and didn't come near her home. She was so sick and to have to go through that was awful for her.

When our kids were still in school, we had to evacuate from Orange, TX to Houston. Normally two hours. We were on the road forever and got stuck in a small town that didn't know how to handle the traffic. They didn't change the only traffic signal in town to accomadate the crd road and you were pretty much just sitting there not moving forever. The light only let about 8 cars through and then went to red. People were getting violent and it wasn't a pretty sight.

Finally a state trooper came and disabled the signal and traffic began to flow slowly through the town. By the time we were through that town, the evacuation was called off and we turned around to go back home.

And Tropical Storm Gert is out there now, but again, nothing we need to worry about, they say!

Charlene (love that rose, by the way), you sound like you're well prepared.

Charlene, We have always had a "hurricane supply cabinet" in our kitchen with canned goods, powered milk etc... batteries, paper plates. We went through Francis in 04 which took the power for 8 days. We found out that you don't really need all that emergency food as the 1st thing we did was to cook & eat everything in the fridge/freezer which is a lot of food. It's going to spoil if you don't eat it anyway. Also cooked food keeps better than raw food. We used the coleman propane 2 burner camp stove as well as the gas grill. We didn't even touch the "hurricane supply". That was my lesson learned. We ate GOOD. 1st up was the lobster tails we had been saving for a special day. We ate in order of the most delictable.
The coleman camp stove was good for bathing too. Boil a pot of water-- get out your garden watering can --- put some hot water mixed with room temp, stand in the shower & your DH can hold it up for you to even wash your hair a quicke. In the heat with no A/C the water doesn't have to be that warm for it to feel good. You kinda want to cool off anyway.
Anyway,3 weeks after Francis we go thit with Jean --- 5 days without power. Once again the fridge/freezer got cleaned out.

Bleach if no one has mentioned it.

Good call Jan as we had all forgotten to mention it.

Here is the next one to be on the lookout for: Invest 93L

Here is this morning's update from Crown Weather Service:

'Once Invest 93L reaches the western Caribbean later Thursday into Friday, the chances of development will increase as it encounters a more favorable environment; in fact, the latest European model guidance forecasts 93L to become a tropical cyclone by Thursday evening over the western Caribbean.

So, it is of my opinion that Invest 93L will develop into a tropical depression and very possibly a tropical storm by Thursday night and especially on Friday. As for a track, it seems likely that 93L will track west to west-northwest south of Jamaica on Wednesday night into Thursday morning as a tropical disturbance and then impact northern Belize and the southern part of the Yucatan Peninsula late Friday night into Saturday morning as a possible tropical storm (Harvey??). After that, this system is currently forecast to be steered by high pressure to its north and thus track west-northwestward across the Bay of Campeche on Saturday night and Sunday and potentially impact the eastern coast of Mexico between Tuxpan and Veracruz as a tropical storm Sunday night into Monday.'

Hate to see it develop & go anywhere it impacts people buuuuutttt hope it stays away from U.S.!
Why can't it just be a good low that goes & gives some rain to poor old Texas! Wildlife is suffering terribly there.

Bleach is a good thing to add to the list. I remember making runs to deliver help in s.e. TX and that was always on the list along with alcohol. Of course we were taking tons of diapers and they had a big need for pedialite.

I made a last minute run into Walmart and took some cash we had raised for supplies, w/o taking my purse. I bought all the pedialite off the shelf and was $3.85 short at the checkout. A couple who was checking out at the next register noticed my dilema and asked what the supplies were for. I told them and they handed me five twenty dollar bills. I ran back for requested flashlights!

When I got to Buna that day we had the best welcome ever. There was one lady who practically cried for joy when I handed her a stroller that was donated. She said her house was covered in mold and she hadn't been able to put her baby down in quite a while. She quickly put him in the stroller and he and she were both delighted. I gave her a bottle of bleach and three rolls of paper towels.

We had hit the motherload of supplies to take that time. Due to the confusion in getting supplies out during Katrina, the larger town near us had a huge stockpile of donated items. They told us to come get all we wanted for the Rita folks. We didn't even scratch the surface on their stockpile. Our lowboy was overfilled and our pickup inside and out was packed.

We made some sad people smile that day.

Charlene

Hetty, the rose is a Dick Clark rose from Chamblee's roses in TX. It was an aars winner in 2010. I brought one with me, I'll let you know how it fares. So for it is thanking me for rescuing it from the TX drought and triple digits!

Charlene

It doesn't look like invest 93L is going to give us any trouble, here the latest picture:




However, this is a status update on a new system that is forming that could cause us folks in Florida some trouble. I quote it (from Crown Weather) in its entirety.

Tropical Disturbance In The Eastern Atlantic:
I am closely watching a tropical disturbance that is located in the eastern Atlantic near 30 West Longitude. Currently, water vapor imagery showed that dry air is being pulled into this disturbance and this should put a hold on any development for the time being. This is not good news as this means this disturbance will be able to track further to the west and develop much further west and be a potential threat to the Caribbean and the US coast.

The global model guidance as a whole continues to insist that this tropical disturbance will eventually develop into a tropical cyclone early next week. Please note that all of the models wait to develop it until it is west of 55 or 60 West Longitude.

The latest GFS model forecasts that this system will start developing on Saturday when it is just east of Barbados. The GFS model then forecasts this system to track across the eastern Caribbean to the south of Puerto Rico and strengthen this weekend into early next week before tracking across the northern Caribbean and across central Cuba next Thursday. The GFS model ultimately forecasts this system to track into the eastern Gulf of Mexico next Friday and Saturday and makes landfall as a hurricane on the Florida Panhandle next Saturday night.

The Canadian model forecasts this to be located just offshore of the east coast of Florida by next Friday as a hurricane.

The European model forecasts that this disturbance will wait to develop until Monday when it is approaching the Turks and Caicos islands. The European model ultimately forecasts this to be a strengthening tropical cyclone over the northern Bahamas next Friday.

Ok, let’s take a step back and look at this disturbance realistically. It is notable that we continue to have agreement and consistency among the models that a significant tropical cyclone will develop west of 60 West Longitude next week. As of this morning, this disturbance is battling dry air and water vapor imagery indicates that we should continue to see it battle dry air right up to at least 50 West Longitude. Also, these same models were forecasting late last week that Invest 93L was going to be a significant tropical cyclone and well we don’t have that. I think it is reasonable to say that we should just keep an eye on this disturbance and see how much the dry air takes a toll on this disturbance and not get worried over the big hurricanes that the model guidance have been forecasting for next week. I think that by Friday when this disturbance is west of 50 and 55 West Longitude, we should start seeing whether we may have a real problem on our hands or if the model guidance forecasts were wrong.

So, I think that this disturbance will continue tracking westward for the next several days and track across Barbados and the Windward and southern Leeward Islands on Saturday into early Sunday. I think the European model may be way too far north in its forecast and that this disturbance is headed for the Caribbean. I also think that the GFS model is being too aggressive in its intensity forecast this weekend and that development will be slower to occur as this disturbance works out the dry air as it reaches the Lesser Antilles and the eastern Caribbean. If we are to have development into a tropical depression or a tropical storm, it will probably wait until Sunday or Monday when it is in the eastern part of the Caribbean.

So, for now, this is a disturbance that I will be monitoring closely over the next several days needs to be watched very closely. Finally, I want to mention that the overall pattern during the 8 to 10 day timeframe continues to point to that anything that does track into the Caribbean would be potentially steered northward towards the Florida Peninsula. So, vigilance is the word of the day here.

Groan. I hate the watching. Goes on so loooong.

Yes, but imagine if you weren't warned, and one day it would just be there...

Well, there is that.

Can't speak for anyone else but I am currently at work with rain, thunder boomers and lights flickering.

It was a bit wild here early this morning, too.