Hurricane Watch-Sunday 1:00pm

The winds are definitely kicking up and becoming more sustained. So far, the rain has not been that bad. We’ve had showers throughout the morning. There are have been some heavy showers, but those have not lasted more than a few minutes. Looking at the radar right now, it looks like we’re between rain bands, but the next band that will be coming through in a few minutes is the main eye-wall of the storm, and that is looking bad. The storm did not seem to break up as much as expected as it came across. The eye is going to come pretty much right through Tampa.

So far we still have power and cable, but Tampa Electric is reporting about 45,000 people without power. They have ordered their crews to stand-down for now, so when the power does go out, I expect it to be out until sometime tomorrow at best. I think we might wind up with more damage than I had first hoped.

Right now we don’t have any major limbs down, but lots of small debris. I’m still very worried about the oak trees in the neighbors yard. One of them leans toward my house. If it goes, its coming on the house. I was first more worried about water, but since the storm didn’t break up as much as hoped, and didn’t go as far north as I hoped, I’m now more worried about wind.

That’s about all to report now. Here’s a link to a webcam looking into downtown Tampa.