"Lots of expensive real estate in the path of the storm."
I'm coming in late to this thread but yes, talk about expensive real estate...
My grandfather bought a patch of sand on Sarasota Bay in 1962, the year I was born. He had a house built there, and I have many happy childhood memories of that place. We went there every year.
Sadly, thanks to mis-understandings related to my grandfather's will, and my father's second wife, that house is gone to my sister and me.
But I will never forget that place. How I loved it. I don't even care how much it was worth on paper.
I guess I'm rambling, but I hope that the people who now occupy that place love it as much as my family did.
Every time there was a hurricane on the Gulf coast, we chatted with my family; my grandparents always put the blinds down and went inland to a hotel in Sarasota.
My prayers go out to those of you in the storm.
The tens of billions invested Disneyland, Universal Studios, and ten thousand small businesses in Orlando and Kissimmee that depend on AAugust and September tourist traffic are what are in more danger.
Thanks goodness many schools opened this week, and so there was less existing tourists threatended.