Monday

Monday, 2:00 p.m.

Milton is now a cat 5 hurricane, with predictions that a cold front from the north will weaken the storm before it makes landfall.

We are about in the center of the cone of probability. The center line runs through St. Pete Beach, about 20 minutes south of us. Not good. The cone keeps creeping north. But 20 miles is better than 0. If this track holds, Tampa Bay will be flooded, a nightmare scenario for the area.

Monday, 5:00 p.m.

Not much change.

The center projection is maybe a couple of miles further south, but the path turns more sharply north of St. Petersburg. The projected weakening to a cat 3 at landfall is encouraging.

Monday, 8:00 p.m.

Not much change.

Same.

It's pretty clear that we are likely to have a major hit, the first in over 100 years. Where it makes landfall will determine who is most impacted. Right now, we would be on the weak side (relatively) with offshore winds. Tampa Bay would be on the strong side, pushing lots of water into a vulnerable bay.

We made three trips to the grocery store today as we refined our plans. We planned a few meals ahead knowing we'd have power until Wednesday. Everything after that is non-perishable, the kind of foods we typically avoid: chips, crackers, cake, canned food, peanut butter. Baked goods with chocolate for breakfast! We got gas this morning, only 93 octane available, everything else sold out. We tried to get cash, but all ATMs in the area are out. 

I broke down one of the smaller pallets of our tile and piled the boxes around the perimeter, trying to make room in the garage for our car. Porcelain tiles are so dense that you can't stack them on top of each other if they're horizontal because the weight will crack the tiles on the bottom (The tiles are slightly concave.). Therefore, they have to be stored in a vertical position.

Each box weighs 52 pounds.

Making room.

It's a snug fit.

The only way we could get the car in the garage was to put the bikes in the house. Toby seemed to like the possibilities.

In the midst of all these preparations, the termite guy came to spray, a requirement every time the foundation is opened to the earth inside a house. We thought renovations last year were difficult because of the holidays: Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's. Two hurricanes are much more disruptive; we were glad the bug man made it. He said it'll likely be his last day to work this week.

I filled up a paper yard bag with debris from our gutters, along with some trimming of branches near the house. That should help the water to drain when the downpour begins. We could get over a foot of rain.

A community-wide effort was organized to get the debris from Hurricane Helene out of the gutters. People were asked to put as much debris in their cans for Tuesday's pick up as possible. Normally, the large truck with the grabber comes through to pick up large piles of debris, but they're overwhelmed with the flooded houses and won't pick up loose debris. In some cases today, when people weren't home because they had evacuated, the neighbors pulled the debris piles off the street and into the yard. The concern is that the debris piles will inadvertently cause flooding in non-flood zones if they block the flow of water in the street. The run-off water needs to get to Saundra Lake and Curlew Creek, the low points. We could get a foot of rainfall.

FEMA is desparately trying to pick up debris from the damaged homes from Helene, but those efforts normally take weeks if not months. There's just not enough time to pick it all up. Everyone is worried about all that junk getting blown around. The landfills are now open 24 hours a day until conditions force them to close. Officials are hurrying to get as much of the debris removed as possible. Dunedin has set up a temporary fenced-in drop off at the community center and a nearby park for folks to dump their debris, both household and vegetation. These are really desperate, temporary measures and sad to see.