Ugh. Besides stalling out for hours this afternoon, it's still only traveling at like 5mph. Which means that not only is it huge, but it's going so slow that it's causing MASSIVE flooding because it's sitting in one place for so long.
Frances is expected to lose power as it crosses the state toward the Tampa Bay area late today, dropping to a tropical storm. But forecasters said it could drench isolated areas with as much as 20 inches of rain, causing serious flooding in numerous west and central Florida counties.
It's just so slow. And it's gone from being a Saturday evening thing, to a Sunday morning thing, to a Sunday afternoon thing to now possibly a Sunday night/Monday morning thing. Ugh. Way to ruin an ENTIRE three day weekend.
Hurricane Frances brought rain squalls, wind gusts and power outages to the Tampa Bay area Saturday night, offering a wet prelude to a miserable Labor Day weekend.
With Frances forecast to take a full 24 hours to cross Florida, tropical storm force winds and drenching rains are expected to stay until early Monday. That could leave some spots with a foot or more of rain.
Just how long can a person sit around their apartment, in the middle of the eventual exit path of a hurricane, with everything closed around them and each and every local channel pre-empting programming to talk about how IT'S NOT YET HERE BUT IT'S [EVENTUALLY] COMING OUR WAY. How many times can you hear that it's going to be rainy and windy for the next 24 solid hours? Ugh.
Closures and cancellations across the region will be widespread today, from Tampa International Airport to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays game. Residents began preparing Saturday for a long stretch indoors.
Managers at Blockbuster video stores described heavy business, with some people renting six or seven videos at a time to get them through the storm.
Scott and Gaby Gramling of St. Petersburg visited a Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse to buy supplies. But their purchases had nothing to do with storm preparations.
"I don't want to get cabin fever," said Scott Gramling. "We're going to get socked in with the rain. So this is the time to do the indoor projects. It's my "Honey do' list."
Walt Disney World was closed Saturday because that was the original predicted time to hit central Florida. Turns out nothing much happened today except that during Labor Day Weekend, the parks sat empty. Now they're closing for an unprecidented second day in a row since Sunday is the newly revised ETA. Pending on how long Frances is in the area, they may or may not have time to clean up prior to a scheduled 9am open time for Monday. I think the world as we know it has ended. Disney closed for two days back-to-back with rumors that the dry spell will continue into day three.
Of course that's not the only thing that's closed. All the Labor day events, fireworks, concerts and such have been cancelled with no rain date yet announced. Though, in a bit of irony, the showings of Gone with the Wind scheduled as part of the Summer Classics Film Festival have been rescheduled for Saturday, Sept. 11th and Sunday, Sept. 12th. Pending of course that Florida itself isn't gone with the wind.
~ castles of sand by Memory and Dream
at 9/5/2004 01:49:27 AM ~
~
