At least you can prepare better for snow

It's that time of season again... another tropical storm is projected to send Southwest Florida some strong storm surge (flooding), rain and wind. 

Helene is at some point going to be upgraded from a Tropical Storm to a Hurricane and make her way into the Gulf and touch town in the Tampa area. Moving north to the Big Bend area and Panhandle before (as one map showed), landing as a post cyclone depression in (of all things) Indiana. 

But until that happens, we're on standby and look out because she's on a very similar flight pattern that Ian took on September 28, 2022. 

Which his two year birthday is in four days.

Not to mention Irma turned seven September 9 to 11 this year. Southwest Florida is stuck between a rock and a hard place right now because we're still trying to get back from 2022 even though parts of Fort Myers Beach was still rebuilding from Charly in 2004. Other parts of the state are trying to rebuild from the last 10 years of disastrous storms.  It's a vicious cycle. 

Right now it's fine even though earlier I put our shutters up as a precaution. If the weather people are correct and we don't get anything but water and wind, then the shutters were put up in haste. At least they're easy to move. But if we get anything past a category 1, we're also covered. These things have paid for themselves in the last seven years, as we purchased them once Irma went away. They saved us during Ian, and every once in a while my mother will close the lanai ones a bit, due to the lightning we get in the summer. 

Peace of mind and all that.

However, what's just as crazy, is I don't know about work. At this moment, everything is normal -  I'll get up tomorrow, do my thing, come home. We are not totally going to be affected until the middle of the night on Wednesday, until mid day Thursday. Whether that be just wind and rain or anything worse. 

My boss is under the impression we'll be fine. The radars he is tracking say it'll stay far from us and head straight north. A few people I have talked to at work are looking at different models and say otherwise. Again, if you put Ian's map next to Helene's, they're just slightly off, but Helene is in the same area as Ian was for us and look how that turned out.

That lies the problem. Hurricanes shift. Irma did that and Ian did that. Blizzards you can see when they start and stop. You can go out when it calms down and shovel. Move the fluff to have more rain down from the sky. It may be cold, but odds are, you're going back in to a warm house. Power goes out frequently for older places, but not all the time. During hurricanes, you never know exactly when it's coming and you can't see it. You can hear it, but only sights you have on it is when the water runs through your street. Power goes out and what do you do? You're stuck inside and if it's 90°, opening a window won't get a breeze during the height of the wind. You have to keep your shutters up. No light in your house in the middle of the day. You're in a closet. 

It's all a catch 22. At the end of it all, are we any better than we were before it started? I don't know.

 Was a lesson learned? Maybe - you know what you need to do for next time. 

Will there be a next time? More than likely.

Will it be soon? I don't know. 

I feel like at this moment, I'm running in a circle and not explaining everything going on. Since it's after 9pm and I've got work tomorrow, I should cut this soon. Currently we're under a Tropical Storm Warning. I'll update as I can and when I can. 

Hopefully this is all for naught and we get itty bitty baby puddles on the roads. Power stays on, no problems to businesses. Let it all be fine...

Is ignorance really bliss in these situations?

Cheers;