Ivan to Arrive Soon Is Here
Sorry for the lack of blogging. Obviously, I'm very preoccupied right now. The current projection shows Ivan's eye going just west of Mobile Bay in Mobile, AL. Mobile is about an hour away. The hurricane force winds extend well out from the eye, and we are on the eastern side, so I expect things will get really bad here. It looks like it's going to come in as a category 4 storm.
Oddly enough, we got more wind on Monday than we did Tuesday. The wind will start picking up soon.
Here's a satellite image of Ivan. (Courtesy of this site recommended by to me by Dave.) The blue dot is where I'm at:
Click for larger size.
I'll update this post throughout the day to let you know what's going on.
Update (11:25am): The rain and gusts have started the last few hours. I've heard the worst part will be between 9:00 tonight and 9:00 tomorrow morning. I didn't sleep well last night, so I'm going to try and get some rest this afternoon, since I won't be sleeping tonight.
Update (3:25pm): It's getting very windy here. We also had some heavy rain a little while ago. The power flashed off for a second and came back on. I'm trying to get some rest, but without any success so far. I'll keep checking in as long as my cable holds out. My iBook is charged up, so I can use that when the power goes out.
Update (6:20pm): The power went off briefly a few minutes ago and I heard a transformer make that noise. But it's back on for now. Robin Jones at Beyond Salvage is in Mobile and is also blogging about Ivan.
Update (7:15pm): Very heavy rain and winds. It's dark outside now, but in the last light I could see the trees waving, bending and twisting. On TV, they are showing the hurricane from space (the pictures are from the space station). I can't believe the eye on this thing.
Update (7:35pm): It sounds like my house is inside of a dishwasher. They just reported that power just went out at the Pensacola Civic Center, which is one of the major shelters in town. I think they said two thousand people are staying there.
Update (9:10pm): Still more of the same -- heavy rain and lots of strong wind. Still have power, though.
Update (9:50pm): Power is out. Will shut down to conserve UPS for cable modem. I'll try to check in later.
Your sister's ziploc idea is a good one. We made an excess of them, then when the power went out, we spread them around the inside of the fridge to keep it colder longer. I also made a lot of coffee ahead of time so that later I could simply reheat it over sterno. We also bought bottled water and froze about a dozen of them. Be safe, kid. I know you will.