Hurricane Watch II-Sunday, 9:00am

I had a bit of a restless night. It was hard to sleep, but fairly quiet. I woke up this morning to some strong wind and rain, but that was just a feeder-band moving through, and things are somewhat quiet again now.

The storm seems to have picked up a little more forward speed now that it is on-shore, and is showing the expected signs of weakening. Its still a big storm though. There are already a lot of limbs down in the back yard, but nothing huge so far. As I’ve noted before, I think the house can handle the wind, but I worry about the two huge oak trees in the neighbors yard. The ground is soft already due to all the rain, so I am nervous about that.

The power and cable have held here so far. That’s good, but I’m sure we’ll lose it sooner or later. I think the little trench I cut to drain water off the back slab is working. I walked back there to look during some of the hard rain, and didn’t have nearly as much water standing there as usual.

NOAA has once again moved the forecast track for Frances more southerly, with the eye coming pretty much right through North Tampa. Doesn’t matter much, as the storm is so big it won’t make a lot of difference. Despite moving a little faster, its still pretty slow moving. It looks like we should be pretty much out of it by tomorrow morning. That will be good. I can start the cleanup Monday. Let’s hope that’s not much more than raking and cleaning out the pool.