Hurricane Charlie... gonna be offline for a bit!

[whoisgregg]

Looks like the Tampa Bay area is going to get hit pretty hard by the hurricane. Good luck to all the webmasters in the area. If you need a place to weather (sorry... couldn't resist) the storm that has plenty of beer and some tiki torches out front, sticky me and I'll give you directions. :) I'm in north Tampa but will entertain visitors from anywhere in the area.

[chrisnrae]

Yea, I'm assuming I'll be offline after tonight for a bit as well. I am 45 minutes north of Tampa, but am still in the place designated as the "Tampa Bay Area" and we have a warning and 1/4 of our county is under mandatory evacuation. Hopefully everyone has prepared for this one and any damage will be minimal. We'll be watching TV and relaxing as long as the generator lasts ;). Sending out "staying dry" vibes to all our locals ;). Extra vibes going to those right near Tampa downtown.

[mattglet]

I'm flying into Daytona Beach tonight... flight gets in around 11pm. Hopefully I don't get stuck in Atlanta (connecting hub), but I am expecting it.

I've been watching the National Hurricane Center's site [nhc.noaa.gov] for the past 2 days. Hopefully I get some luck during today's superstitous day.

And for accuracy's sake, it's Hurricane Charley, not Charlie ;)

[whoisgregg]

We're outside of the storm surge area, but still expecting to get slammed by the 150 mph gusts and 8 inches of rain... I'm guessing the swamp behind us is going to start creeping up in a few hours. :(

This is why I don't have my servers located in Florida... :)

<edit>

Hurricane Charley, not Charlie

doh! They never spell it on the radio...
</edit>

[mattglet]

Heh, spoke too soon... It's affirmative, I'll be staying in Atlanta for the night. Flight is already cancelled from Atlanta to Daytona Beach.

[mahlon]

Cat 4 now, whoa!

[intellicast.com...]

[chrisnrae]

Good news for us is that it appears to be coming onshore a little further south than they thought. We'll still get a heck of a storm in the Tampa area, but hopefully not the direct hit the originally forecasted. Of course, good news for us, bad news for those south of us. Hope they're ready.

[mfishy]

We got hammered here in Orlando. I had a big 8 foot tall wooden fence get torn in half by the wind and nearly 1/2 of all the trees in my neighborhood have gone down. We have a lot of big tall windows in my house and during the peak of the storm they were banging and shaking. It was pretty frightening.

Around 1 million folks in florida are currently without power and hundreds of thousands without phone.

Thankfully, my friends and family are safe and in good health. Other areas like Fort Myers/Port Charlotte got it much worse.

[Essex_boy]

When I hear about things like this Im so pleased I live Great Britain.

[Greg27]

I hear fast help in on the way from the Feds. The damage looks significant.

[bakedjake]

When I hear about things like this Im so pleased I live Great Britain.

Aren't there some pretty nasty floods over there this morning?

[TheDoctor]

Nasty flooding in Boscastle, Cornwall. But, the latest I heard, no one dead, thankfully. The only injury seems to be one broken finger. But a lot of people homeless.

It's not the first flooding this week in Britain, but it's the worst. And there's more heavy rain predicted for the next couple of days, so I think a lot of people in flood-risk areas may be feeling a bit nervous.

The rain, of course, has come across from the Gulf of Mexico, so events both sides of the Atlantic are not unrelated. But most of the force has gone from the wind by the time it gets this far north-east.

Sympathies to al those affected by Hurricane Charley.

[chrisnrae]

Yea mfishy - it was ironic in a sense. We knew several people who went to stay with family in Orlando to ride out the storm. In the end, they actually put themselves in the hurricanes path. They are estimating the damage at 11 billion and counting and I think the death toll is up to 20.

After watching the Punta Gorda footage live and seeing the "after" pictures [cnn.com], I felt so bad for those in that area - but also a little relieved that it hadn't happened to us.

Sorry you got some damage in Orlando - hopefully not too bad. And yea, the PG/PC area is going to be recovering for a long time.