Thanks Dean...we've been talking to everyone on our block, family & friends and we've decided to ride it out together...it's only forecast to be a tropical storm at this time and as long as it doesn't shift anymore, we'll be fine. If we evacuate this close to the storm making landfall, we run a very high risk of getting gridlocked in traffic and then we'd be forced to ride the hurricane out right there in our cars and that wouldn't be good...it takes about 15 hours to go 120 miles during a heavy evacuation, if everything goes well and stormy weather is forecast to start up in the morning and continue to go down hill from there.

Thanks Sue...it's still up in the air, I think they're afraid to advise us one way or the other and I don't really blame them because so many people threw a fit about having to spend money evacuating for Gustav last week and although we lost power and had moderate damage, had we stayed, we would have been fine for the most part but if they don't tell us to leave and it hits here, they would get the blame so, they're darned if they do and they're darned if they don't.

Whew are you going to go? I just saw on the news they are talking about texas. This thing is so big though...are you near the water or under sea level? They say the waves could be massive. We are on the myrtle beach sc shoreline and we all were more afraid of Ike then Hanna...the locals just looked at Hanna as another way of getting more rainfall as we were close to drought conditions. But Ike - I pray for everyones safety no matter where it lands...Sue!

Nope, we're going to hunker down and ride it out here. You're right, it's enormous and they're trying to evacuate 10 million people, literally...there's no way! We're right there between Cameron and Lake Charles....almost to the Texas/Louisiana border. I'm just sitting here eating Mint Chocolate Blue Belle Ice Cream and I'm going swimming this afternoon...we're stocked up on supplies pretty well.

Michelle, wherever you are right now, I pray you see this and know we're all thinking of you. All of you living in hurricane zones. It's terrifying for everyone, I know.

Warm hugs and stay safe!!

Thanks Kat...I'll be thinking about yall too! I think we made a good call here, if the forecast holds, we will experience Category 1 hurricane conditions for about 18-22 hours, it's expected to start in the morning(Friday) around 9:00 and should be over sometime in the early morning hours on Saturday. Of course tornadoes are a hazard and flooding, they're calling for a storm tide/surge(similar to a tidal wave) about 2 ft. above what we had in '05, about 18ft. at the coast, so I calculate about 6 ft. or so here is possible and the pad under the house is built up about 5 ft. but of course you have to add in the possible 20 inches of rain but all-in-all, I'm confident that we're okay here too. We have plenty of food and supplies, we have a generator(they told us we will definitely have power outages and that we can expect to be without power for at least a week) and if the boat doesn't float away, we can use it to get out of here if we need to after the storm, I just pray that I'm not going into a flare, I've been really tired and the pain is climbing the ladder.

hey Michelle....

how are things going? I'm sorry I missed this yesterday, but i wasn't able to get on, super duper busy here at work.

please let me/us know how you're doing!

Hi Sarah...so far so good, I'm drinking a cup of coffee and fixing to attack the doughnuts! I have a huge bag full of chocolate, too! The clouds are really over exaggerated, the winds are light but the sky is dark, you can tell something's coming, it's kind of eerie...I've got a disposable camera handy and I'm going to take pictures and I'm going to post them.......yes, I will.... really! `

doughnuts....i want some! what kind do you have, i might have to come steal one or two.
i can't wait to see pics, i love storm and storm pics.
keep us posted!

Come on down...I have those little white powdered sugar ones, my honey went and got them for me. Curfew starts at 10a.m. so we're going to go out for a ride and see what's going on. I know Cameron already has 6 ft. of water across the board and the storm surge has now been forecast for 18-22 ft. Check out this map....I'm located at 30.2N & 93.4W....

http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/tracking/at200809_alerts.html#a_topad

I have a sister in Houston, she's a nurse so she can't leave and my niece and her husband live there with their 2 little boys. Oh, I forgot the point...oh yeah..my sister works at Woodland Hermann Memorial Hosp. and she's emailing me the live feed to the hospitals webcam that shows I-45 and Sarah, you can see what's happening in New Orleans through the webcams...I posted the link last year somewhere in the Asylum.