In Hartford, Hereford and Hampshire . . . [UPDATED AGAIN]

. . . Hurricane Hanna is headed straight at us.

Ike, however, appears to be "the big one" and is headed vaguely in the direction of our family's house in Florida.

Downed power lines and power outages, sometimes lasting days, are the likeliest fallout.  I need to go out and get some battery-operated lanterns and some more bottled water. 

If I vanish from the radar overnight, that's undoubtedly why.  Unlike in Louisiana (where Pat must be getting home about now to his stove-in house), harm is unlikely. 

UPDATE:  We are right in the track of the eye, but of course the storm will come overland to us and, alliteration be damned, it's already "only" a tropical storm. 

We went to Wal-Mart.  The weather was . . . different.  Gray and still, with a sense of sullen anticipation (kind of like the first slick swells of nausea when you're going to barf in a few hours) and a prickle of tiny rain.  The stores, roads, and parking lots were packed, but without much hurry or worry.  (People are peering over Hanna's head at Ike and Josephine.  "It's like a bowling alley," says Governor Easley on TV.)  Wal-Mart had three battery-operated camping lanterns left and was almost cleaned out of D batteries; I think we got the last four, plus a slew of Cs for the radio.

UPDATE II:  Now the track is being plotted to the east of us.  We're not even in the high wind warning zone.  The coast is going to get clobbered, though. 

The hummingbirds at our feeder are behaving differently.  Instead of darting and sipping, they're sitting down and drinking deep.  The level of sugar water has gone down noticeably just today.  They must sense that they need to tank up, because they may not be able to feed for close to 24 hours.

UPDATE III:  Review of Hanna:  blessedly anticlimactic.  It rained hard all night, and we had a brief power outage (8:45 - 10:25) this morning.  Now she's beating up on my sister in Richmond, where a stretch of I-95 was closed because of downed power lines. 

My favorite hurricane watcher says, "Don’t worry too much about Ike just yet," and explains why.  For one thing, Hanna swilled up some of the warmth Ike would need to grow.

Comments

[Meade]

My thoughts and best wishes are with you and your family. And Pat and his. And everyone else in harm's way. It too shall pass, sure, but may it also blow over.

[Outis]

Downed power lines and power outages, sometimes lasting days, are the likeliest fallout.

On your side of the state. I wouldn't want to be on the east coast next week. I remember some family friends who lost five out of six houses during Hurricane Andrew. < shudders > I think SE Florida is supposed to be even more overdeveloped now, but the building codes are better now. (And I can attest to that first hand - after Chaarlie went through Central Florida you could tell which houses had roofs that were put on pre-Andrew. They were the ones with the big blue tarps.)

[RW Rogers]

Here's hoping it is just a whimper by the time it gets to you.

[Outis]

Sorry, I was thinking of your parents house down in SW FLA. I've put Hanna out of mind completely, as she's giving us cloud cover, some wind, some rain and cooler temps. But she's not a concern for Fla anymore. Ike, on the other hand, will be worthy of some butt-clenching over the weekend as we see which path it ultimately settles on.

[RW Rogers]

(In a lighter mood since it is not really headed straight at it you)
Hey, it could be worse. You could be a cat on a bank-owned roof. Then again, they look like they're leading the life of Riley. (Does anyone say that any more?)

[amba]

Outis, we had near misses from Charley (which turned inland about 30 miles north and flattened Punta Gorda) and Wilma (which went down to Naples and ripped the roof off my brother's senior affordable housing. I'm clenched.

[amba]

Did you get nearly drowned by Fay? That was the slowest-moving hurricane in living memory. I rudely described her as taking the time to squat over Florida and thoroughly piss on it.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Amba, when Hugo came through, it was a little west; all we had was the prettiest weather we'd had the whole month.

Of course, it got a little wet in Hickory.

[PatHMV]

Hope it continues to miss your area, Amba. Your work with Jacques is hard enough as it is in the best of conditions. Y'all are in my prayers from my dank, humid, partially-roofless house.

I'm doing fine, though. Many of my possessions were spared. Hope to have a contractor start work tomorrow. Will post more when I can get my laptop connected for a bit. Thanks to all for their thoughts and prayers.

[amba]

Pat! Glad you are home and that it is more intact than not.

We're getting a lot of rain now, but no significant wind yet. It's the eastern part of the state that's going to take a beating, but it has seens much worse.

[karen]

Hey, amba. Was Hanna a blowhard? I hope she was and that you, J and your kits are safe.