Motherfletcher
<font color=red>Proud Redhead<br><font color=peach
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2003
- Messages
- 3,823
I need to start by saying that I have been involved with hurricanes and severe storm events for many years. Charley was the first hurricane that I had not volunteered on the Collier County Emergency Response Team. The county's Emergency Management Director is a good friend and I have helped in every event including hazardous waste spills for the last 16 years. I have worked preparation and clean up for Andrew in Homestead and even helped in Jamacia in '92. My friend retired this year so I thought it was time for my family to enjoy the time off/vacation granted when you get a mandatory evacuation.
8/12/04 Evacuation!
When they come on the TV and say that those living in low lying areas need to evacuate you need to check your driver's license to determine if you need to go. If it says "Florida" thats a good indication you need to leave.
Hurricane Prep-
You should have, by now, done all the usual prep such as buying 3 days worth of water, non-perishable foods, etc. Its always a good idea to just go to your local Publix and fight with others for whatever items remain on the shelves.
Batteries- Do not let your kids help pick out batteries. In my case we had $167 worth of batteries that didn't fit into any flashlight but worked fine in the Gameboy Advance.
Bleach- Buy bleach. No one knows why- its just a tradition.
Cash- Take out $27,000 worth of cash, gold or diamonds to be used after the storm to pay for a used generator from a guy with more tatoos than Cher and no discernable teeth that had used the generator to power the Zipper for a traveling carnival.
Insurance- Get all of your insurance papers, Oh! Thats right you don't have insurance, Motherfletcher. You have been canceled every chance the insurance companies had. Oh you could have got it from that guy named Luigi for an annual premium roughly equal to value of your property. But, NO, you didn't get it.
Lastly, but most important, is load up your family, fill your van up with gas and drive to Iowa!
When we got orders to evac on Thurs. I went home and tried to come up with a last minute plan. DW was off work so she called the hospital to see if she could leave with us. They said if she didn't come in Friday she'd get wrote up and get some points and not get a raise. They said she couldn't come into the hospital that night though. Was she suppose ignore the fire trucks going up and down the street blaring warnings on their loudspeaker?
OK Mom stays home where do we go? The smart answer was Ft. Lauderdale. But since the hurricane was supposed to go north of Tampa I convinced the family that Universal was the best place to be. I got on Hotwire and it was as slow as trying for World Series tickets. Tampa had given the mandatory evac to 350k by then and everyone was looking for a room. I finally got TraveLodge in Kissimmee for Thurs and Friday nights at $26.
OK pack up! Do we board up the windows? Naw, that sounds like alot of work. The storm surge is suppose to be 10' so lets get all our valuables off the floor and up in the closets. The only thing that I could think of worth saving was the $85,000 spent on Pokemon cards that I had bought a few years back. Gotta Save 'Em All! OK should we take the dog? No Momma wants the dog to keep her company and protect her. OK kiss Momma and Blue goodbye. We have to get on the road before its gridlocked!
Too late. No, the road was actually pretty good until Tampa's rush hour and I-4. Our normal 3 1/2 hour trip was an extra hour. Not too bad. We got to USO at about 7.
USO-
While walking into the park the kids were paying no attention to me while I was telling them that the parking garage was 3.4 million square feet and the largest in the world. DS16 was mad that I was walking fast and begged me to walk "normal". As we rounded the Fossil store in CityWalk I noticed someone that looked familiar but couldn't put my finger on it. I overheard him telling a little girl that he was just on vacation. I turned around and pointed him out to my son who was a hundred feet behind me by then. I told my DD10, "Hey, that's...ahh that's...ah?" Finally someone that heard me struggling said "Sinbad". He was with half a dozen guys. The thing that threw me was his head was shaved. I finally had a Celebrity sighting! WooHoo!
I wanted to go to MIB but as we passed Horror MakeUp the show was only 5 minutes away so we stopped. There was a new twist- both Alex Ross and Marty James were female. They did a little different suggestive movement with the high voltage motion telemetry suit involving Eddie's crotch.
We got in 3 single rider MIB's. One time I rode with a family of 5 who went crazy when we beat the other car and got Galaxy Defender. The Mom finally figured out that it was because of my score and smothered me with praise/admiration. We went back around and got in the single riders queue and this family again was queued in the hotel express. They were begging the MIB Agents to let me ride with them again. I narced my DS16 as all 9's so they wanted him instead my measley 800k. I was put in the car opposite them and ended up scoring greater than all of the other riders in the car combined and still beat the other car.
I had quite a few comments about my shirt while we were in line. I was wearing one with an embroidered hurricane symbol and "Emergency Response Team". A couple people asked if I was with FEMA.
They announced that the nightly fireworks would be canceled due to inclement weather. This was kind of odd because there wasn't any signs of inclement weather yet.
On our way out we went to get our photos taken for our new AP's. The lady was nice and allowed us to strike our gangsta poses. She did get a faint smile out of DS16 though. It was about 5 minutes to 9 so we queued up for Shrek. This was the first time we have been able to experience the whole queue. We were in the last showing with less than 100 people so we sat in the front row.
We drove to Kissimmee and found the TraveLodge next to the McDonalds on 192. DD10 was impressed by the heighth and asked if we could stay on the top floor. They gave us the 6th floor pool side. We dined at the McD's. Tomorrow- Friday the 13th! The rest of the trip really blows! Stay tuned...
8/12/04 Evacuation!
When they come on the TV and say that those living in low lying areas need to evacuate you need to check your driver's license to determine if you need to go. If it says "Florida" thats a good indication you need to leave.
Hurricane Prep-
You should have, by now, done all the usual prep such as buying 3 days worth of water, non-perishable foods, etc. Its always a good idea to just go to your local Publix and fight with others for whatever items remain on the shelves.
Batteries- Do not let your kids help pick out batteries. In my case we had $167 worth of batteries that didn't fit into any flashlight but worked fine in the Gameboy Advance.
Bleach- Buy bleach. No one knows why- its just a tradition.
Cash- Take out $27,000 worth of cash, gold or diamonds to be used after the storm to pay for a used generator from a guy with more tatoos than Cher and no discernable teeth that had used the generator to power the Zipper for a traveling carnival.
Insurance- Get all of your insurance papers, Oh! Thats right you don't have insurance, Motherfletcher. You have been canceled every chance the insurance companies had. Oh you could have got it from that guy named Luigi for an annual premium roughly equal to value of your property. But, NO, you didn't get it.
Lastly, but most important, is load up your family, fill your van up with gas and drive to Iowa!
When we got orders to evac on Thurs. I went home and tried to come up with a last minute plan. DW was off work so she called the hospital to see if she could leave with us. They said if she didn't come in Friday she'd get wrote up and get some points and not get a raise. They said she couldn't come into the hospital that night though. Was she suppose ignore the fire trucks going up and down the street blaring warnings on their loudspeaker?
OK Mom stays home where do we go? The smart answer was Ft. Lauderdale. But since the hurricane was supposed to go north of Tampa I convinced the family that Universal was the best place to be. I got on Hotwire and it was as slow as trying for World Series tickets. Tampa had given the mandatory evac to 350k by then and everyone was looking for a room. I finally got TraveLodge in Kissimmee for Thurs and Friday nights at $26.
OK pack up! Do we board up the windows? Naw, that sounds like alot of work. The storm surge is suppose to be 10' so lets get all our valuables off the floor and up in the closets. The only thing that I could think of worth saving was the $85,000 spent on Pokemon cards that I had bought a few years back. Gotta Save 'Em All! OK should we take the dog? No Momma wants the dog to keep her company and protect her. OK kiss Momma and Blue goodbye. We have to get on the road before its gridlocked!
Too late. No, the road was actually pretty good until Tampa's rush hour and I-4. Our normal 3 1/2 hour trip was an extra hour. Not too bad. We got to USO at about 7.
USO-
While walking into the park the kids were paying no attention to me while I was telling them that the parking garage was 3.4 million square feet and the largest in the world. DS16 was mad that I was walking fast and begged me to walk "normal". As we rounded the Fossil store in CityWalk I noticed someone that looked familiar but couldn't put my finger on it. I overheard him telling a little girl that he was just on vacation. I turned around and pointed him out to my son who was a hundred feet behind me by then. I told my DD10, "Hey, that's...ahh that's...ah?" Finally someone that heard me struggling said "Sinbad". He was with half a dozen guys. The thing that threw me was his head was shaved. I finally had a Celebrity sighting! WooHoo!
I wanted to go to MIB but as we passed Horror MakeUp the show was only 5 minutes away so we stopped. There was a new twist- both Alex Ross and Marty James were female. They did a little different suggestive movement with the high voltage motion telemetry suit involving Eddie's crotch.
We got in 3 single rider MIB's. One time I rode with a family of 5 who went crazy when we beat the other car and got Galaxy Defender. The Mom finally figured out that it was because of my score and smothered me with praise/admiration. We went back around and got in the single riders queue and this family again was queued in the hotel express. They were begging the MIB Agents to let me ride with them again. I narced my DS16 as all 9's so they wanted him instead my measley 800k. I was put in the car opposite them and ended up scoring greater than all of the other riders in the car combined and still beat the other car.
I had quite a few comments about my shirt while we were in line. I was wearing one with an embroidered hurricane symbol and "Emergency Response Team". A couple people asked if I was with FEMA.
They announced that the nightly fireworks would be canceled due to inclement weather. This was kind of odd because there wasn't any signs of inclement weather yet.
On our way out we went to get our photos taken for our new AP's. The lady was nice and allowed us to strike our gangsta poses. She did get a faint smile out of DS16 though. It was about 5 minutes to 9 so we queued up for Shrek. This was the first time we have been able to experience the whole queue. We were in the last showing with less than 100 people so we sat in the front row.
We drove to Kissimmee and found the TraveLodge next to the McDonalds on 192. DD10 was impressed by the heighth and asked if we could stay on the top floor. They gave us the 6th floor pool side. We dined at the McD's. Tomorrow- Friday the 13th! The rest of the trip really blows! Stay tuned...
