Breathe out....

The most annoying tropical system of the year award goes to Tropical Rainstorm Fay. Through no fault of her own, Fay irritated tens of thousands of folks coast-wide this past weekend. Despite the fact that Fay was only a tropical storm when she would begin her journey over several hundred miles of land to reach us... Despite their own admissions that Fay would be downgraded to a weakening tropical depression when and if she reached us... Our local news stations issued constant urgent warnings to the people of the Mississippi Gulf Coast about rainfall and winds gusting to 25 mph. The governor's office used their nifty new automated warning system to send out telephone messages from the governor himself telling people to be prepared and make plans to evacuate if necessary. (We didn't get one of these phone calls... Apparently the governor's office lost our number.) Nothing happened. Which is, ironically, exactly what all those warning messages predicted....

And so this weekend - the weekend of the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina... The games begin anew with the threat of what is predicted to become Hurricane Gustav.

I talked to a lady last night on the telephone who made it through Hurricane Katrina without major damage to her home only to have the place burn down 14 days later in an electrical fire.
She's been living in various trailers with rotating combinations of family members as they all try to get their own homes finished while waiting to get started on hers. She's not feeling all that happy about predictions of hurricane force Gustav winds reaching us by August 29th. It's just not funny.

I do. not. want. to. evacuate.

But we would need to start calling for hotel reservations yesterday. If we manage to get a reservation for the weekend somewhere within 200 miles of here - we will not know whether we need it or not in time to cancel reservations without having to pay for the unused rooms.

"Canceling your reservation before 6:00 PM (local hotel time) on Wednesday, 27 August, 2008 will result in no charge. Canceling your reservation after 6:00 PM (local hotel time) on 27 August, 2008, or failing to show, will result in a charge equal to the first night's stay per room to your credit card."

So I would have until 6pm tonight to decide whether or not I really need the room for a hurricane that isn't a hurricane yet that may make landfall between Sunday and Tuesday of next week if at all somewhere between the Yucatan and southern Florida.

I'm off to search for rooms.... If I can't find any I suppose I'll just throw a few hundred dollars into the Gulf of Mexico and say I did.

Back with more....