the sometimes senseless ravings (and the occassional rant) of an aspiring marine ecologist who may enjoy killing things a little too much

Thursday, July 07, 2005

Hurricane Plans

yeah, i'm sure you are all sick to death of posts about hurricane dennis, but i just can't help it. i'm completely consumed with hurricane-related thoughts. i can't seem to change the channel and stop watching the weather. to ease everyone's minds, i will not be going to port st. joe this weekend. i don't give a damn what anyone else thinks. i am absolutely scared to death of the approaching hurricane (which is now expected to make landfall early sunday afternoon), and i refuse to go driving off 300 miles east (and still in the path of the storm). gretchen tried talking me into going this morning, but i held my ground. she's from maine. what the hell does she know about hurricanes? i'm not taking any chances. dr. crozier (the sea lab director) has ordered an evacuation of DISL, anyway. all the students in the dorms have to leave this weekend. there's still a small chance that the storm could miss us (*fingers crossed*), but as they're preparing to order an evacuation of mobile if necessary, i won't hold my breath. apparently, the shelters in mobile can't withstand a category 3 hurricane, and if it looks like dennis will hit us as a category 3, mobile will be evacuated, with shelters open along the evacuation route.

since dennis is now a category 3 (but a weak one, with winds of 115 mph), and it is very possible for it to reach category 4 strength despite still having to pass over cuba, it is looking more and more likely that chad and i will be getting the hell out of here on saturday. we still haven't made up our minds yet, though. some of the current projections seem to take the hurricane east of us (in the navarre/ft. walton beach area), so we might stick around mobile if it still looks that way tomorrow and into saturday morning. if we decide to leave, we're heading for tuscaloosa. at least we have a plan, even if i'm having a bit of a breakdown in nerves.

i guess for now, it's sort of business as usual - i taught a lab this afternoon (and it went fine), and i'll be teaching another one tomorrow afternoon. but first, i have to go out and collect 200 hermit crabs. that sounds like a lot, i know, but they're absolutely rampant on dauphin island, so it shouldn't take too long. then, it's decision-making time. i'll let everyone know if chad and i leave mobile.

4 comments:

Vanessa said...

Casey and I had lunch together today. We remembered your pending trip out to Port St. Joe. We were greatly hoping that you would not be making the trip. Now that I've read about your plans, I'm glad that you decided to take a stand (let Gretchen see for herself what these storms can really do).

As for me, if it looks like an Ivan, or even an Opal, we're heading back to where we stayed last time (Mom's work, ECUA). I'm cool with it, we'll have electricity. I'm taking my laptop. Plus hopefully we'll pack better food. It was a huge relief when we saw the possibility that the storm will land somewhere east of Navarre. That's very good news for us... bad news for those peeps in the East though.

You and Chad take care as well.

Anonymous said...

I'm very glad your not going to port st. joe!

This thing is FREAKING ME OUT. just to put it lightly.

It looks worse than ivan..and its not moving east, but instead, west. that's bad. very bad.

sigh..

stay safe

--casey

LaTina said...

yeah, i think it's pretty obvious just how freaked i am about this thing. i got kinda happy yesterday when i thought it was going to hit east of navarre, but now i'm hearing that it's heading for AL/FL line, which SUCKS for all of us. in case anyone was wondering, chad and i decided not to head north - we're going to texas instead (if we think we need to leave mobile).

Anonymous said...

Well, I think you may have jinksed yourself, earlier. Comparing Dennis to Ivan when Dennis was still a category 1, going, its ok, Dennis is still wimpy. Anyway, I am just joking with you. Makes me really rather glad I have left, though we can get hurricanes up here, we just haven't so far this year, and now I have just jinksed myself. I hope all of you are safe and get the hell out of the way. I left when Ivan came through, I didn't want to stay, as facinating as hurricanes are, I wanted myself and my cats safe, so I went north, though I could have stayed in Mobile as it turned out, but 20/20 hindsight. Even if we knew Dennis would turn out like Ivan, where Mobile would turn out safe, I would still make the run and get the hell out of the way. Better safe than scaried and sorry. :)

Anyway, please take care, all of you. I worry about you.