August 31, 2004
It Is Never Too Early
to plan one's demise. Acidman says he's staying to ride out Frances, regardless, should she blow his way. I'm good with that assessment. I expect some good blogging out of it.
Mine is a bit more complicated. I'm closer to the coast than he by half, and I have the river on the other side of me about 3/4 of a mile as the tree limb flies. Hemmed in, so to speak. Plus a spouse, dependents, other clingers-on.
I asked The Bride today why she was stocking up on foodstuffs again, and yet more batteries, when it is obvious to me if the winds are predicted to give butterflies the whoop-de-doo's she's hauling ass.
"You'll waste all that food," I said. Because once you leave you can't come back until some geek in Tallahassee says you can. National Guardsmen will assassinate you for attempting to return to your own abode. It takes approximately three days for government workers to field strip a neighborhood, so count on four days.
My own forced ranking on evacuate/don't evacuate:
Category 1: We stay. A good old fashioned glimpse at Mother Nature.
Category 2: We stay. A good old fashioned glimpse at Mother Nature, with sporadic moments of terror for the children. All kids need a few moments of that. So we stay, For The Children.
Category 3: The Bride hauls ass. I won't be able to stop it, nor do I care. She, the kids, and the cats can go to the Crown Plaza in Macon (oh, yes. I do have reservations. It's called a fall-back position. Executive level suite. Very nice. My cousin in Savannah has the suite next to mine, as he plans to evac as well). I'll stay here at the soon to be accurately named Velocihovel with the club-footed bird, to protect my property from looters, and stagger outside at the height of the storm with a headful of Cuervo. These opportunities are rare. One must take advantage.
Category 4, or 5: Even I'm not stupid enough to ride that out. There isn't a damned thing in my house Liberty Mutual cannot replace, except me. I'll take some Important Papers, and guns, and go play in the pool at the Crown Plaza.
The key is to plan this so you take all the food and liquor you bought for a Cat 2, so it doesn't spoil. I'll need to take two vehicles as well, probably both utes, just to mule all the clothes The Bride is already tagging for deployment.
It ain't much, but it's a plan.