Food - Water - Whiskey: One Key West couple was noted on Yahoo News to be stocked up on their essentials to ride out Hurricane Fay, still a Tropical Storm as the eye makes it way through the Florida Straits, with a good probability of picking up strength before heading dangerously close to the Florida Keys. But in the true pirate-hippy Keys' style...what could possibly become a calamity, we make into a party :) because it's 5 o'clock somewhere, hurricane be damned!! (Thanks Jimmy!!)
This is important to me, since, well, I LIVE HERE. Not Key West per se, but in the Middle Keys. We aren't sooo much at risk, although one can never be too sure about hurricanes. The hurricanes of 2005 proved many a forcaster wrong, with grave results.
As I type, I can hear the winds picking up, lashing at the palm trees, and the clouds have fully opened with a deluge of rain...it will be a wet one for sure. Living in drought conditions for the past two years, we were welcoming that precious precipitation, but all at once? Ummmmm.....not so much. The ocean side of the Keys will likely face a storm surge of 3 to 4 feet...we live on the Gulf side...crossing our fingers, we breath out a tentative sigh of wary relief..."not this time....not like Wilma" But there is always that nagging feeling, pulling at the back of our minds....:maybe this is the one, the BIG one...maybe we shoulda, coulda prepared better.....or left".
Concerned friends and family members have been calling, offering prayers and refuge since last night, "Are you leaving?" is the popular question. "Not yet", we reply, "but we are keeping a close watch and will let you know if plans change." Other friends ask, "What can we do for you?" My husband replies, "Book more dates!!" Heh, heh...always working is he.
Zen Tarpon Daddy just returned from our shed/office, with the news that there is flooding already, with 12+ hours to go!! Woo...hoo...<sign>.
Zen Tarpon Daddy is a man of the elements, spending 12+ hours a day amidst the sun, air and water...it is in his blood, and I trust him and his sixth sense that we will be okay. We will probably lose power, we will probably be flooded a bit, and we will probably have a LOT of work afterward, but we will be okay. Three years ago, his sixth sense told him to 'get outta Dodge' as Wilma pummeled Mexico...he knew, he saw the storm surge of a Cat 5 coming...and we were one of the 10% of the local population to leave. I remember watching the Weather Channel Monday afternoon and seeing reports on Key West, and then reports in Key Largo, and I remember praying..."No, not us...maybe we didn't get hit (yeah, right). We returned three days later to what appeared to be a nasty and pungent prank; the floors and everything below 10" were muddy, soaked and destroyed. And let's not get into what was found in the bathroom....ugh!! Thankfully, ZenT and Zen Buddy did the dirty work, while I washed possibly everything we owned...everything that couldn't be washed was thrown out. Leave it to Mother Nature to declutter your home...better than any show on HGTV!!
I did not take pictures of the 10 foot high piles of absolute junk that stood sentinel in front of 80% of the houses. 20 years of belongs will do that. Included in that were refrigerators, washers, dryers, ovens, and computers (yeah, we left our computer on the ground too this time...just up'n left).
We were the lucky ones...our back door is a Hurricane door, hense, watertight, so when the 4 foot storm surge rose to engulf our sleepy town, our house held tight, except for the 1 1/2 inch gap between the front door and the floor....4 feet came through and the water line inside our home was at 10"....thank you sweet powers that be. Other neighbors were still not in their homes one year later!! Once again, though I occasionall (frequently) curse my concrete walls (what the sammhill do I have to do to put up a picture or shelf!?), all we had to do was empty out our home, power wash the inside, let dry, and move back in...we were back home, albeit much lighter in the clutter department five days after Wilma hit.
I've been told by old-timer locals that duct tape will fix that gap and keep out the water. I sure hope we do not have to put that theory to the test!!
Last night, Zen Tarpon Daddyo returned home with the above-mentioned provisions; Captain Morgan and Jose Cuervo, and the appropriate mixers for....you guessed it....Hurricanes and Margaritas!! Yo Ho Ho and a bottle of RUM!!!
Cheers to y'all me hearty fellow pirates!!! We will weather this storm, light that of years past, with strength, resilience and humor. Aaaargh!!
