Monday Morning Update-Wilma

Well, as I noted in the update last night, it started raining about 7PM, and has been pretty steady since then, with some strong rains at various times. I’m guessing we’ve had less than 4 inches of rain. The wind didn’t start until right at 3AM, and while it has been gusty at times, I’ve seen it just as bad during some of our thunderstorms.

The worst area was south of the very large eye, and Wilma had intensified to a solid category 3 hurricane by the time it made landfall. The eye was so large, it looked, as one point, as if the entire southern tip of Florida was in the eye. The cold front has pushed down to just north of Tampa, and watching the radar, its pretty obvious that it has kept the worst of the weather blocked from the Tampa/St. Pete area. Polk County, to our east, is getting much worse rain and wind.

I have a feeling that Key West may have been pretty battered, but I haven’t had time to watch a lot of news this morning. Because of getting up and down several times last night, I slept a little late this morning, and am getting the day started.

At 2AM the power went out here. I don’t know why. Lay was still up and reported hearing a "boom," but there was no wind at the time…not even gusts. I fired up the generator, and it worked like a champ. He continued to watch the big screen, and we turned on lamps as we needed. Sometime this week, I’m going to do some "load testing" on that thing and see if it can run the air conditioning too. Anyway, right at 3AM power was restored.

I don’t have any limbs down in the yard…not even any small debris to speak of other than some leaves. So, with this thing rapidly pulling away, I think we, knock on wood, made out all right here.