Good luck, Starwise. This won't be an Andrew.
The skies are darkening and a light rain is just beginning to fall. No wind, the trees are still and it feels like all the air is being sucked out. Very humid.
I'm trying to kill time here, I'm starting to go nuts waiting around for this thing.
The kids are all playing outside right now. Good for them to use up some energy before becoming house bound.
For the freeper with the North Port family... don't worry.
It's well inland from the water... if they go then all of Port Charlotte is toast. If they're interested the North Port High school is open and not full.
True, this isn't Andrew. Andrew was a fairly dry storm but with catastrophic winds. This storm is more like Donna, with catastrophic storm surge. Well-built homes that are far enough inland will be ok but people on the coast in low-lying areas are in big trouble. Here in the keys, Donna washed away a lot of homes. The house I lived in as a child was built on the foundation of a house Donna washed away. The 1935 hurricane that was so deadly was bad as far as storm surge goes. The hurricane monument in Islamorada shows the high water mark that particular storm made, and let me tell you, it's sobering. My house is fairly high up on our island, but if we'd had warning of storm surge like the west coast is getting, we'd have been GONE. Our house would have been standing, but not much else.