Guys, This Does Not Look Good – I Have To Evacuate

Dear friends,

Things are not looking very good tonight: check out the 11PM predicted track for Hurricane Matthew:

What this means is that Matthew will pass over my house as a CAT4 Hurricane (hence the letter “m” as in “major” on the map above) with very high winds, torrential rain, isolated tornadoes and a significant storm surge. This also means that all of the coastal areas will be evacuated and that most, if not all, of the coastal areas will lose power: no electricity, no Internet, no phone service. My family and I have had the time to book a room in a nearby hotel, a modern building with generators so we hope to be personally out of danger, God willing. Our house, however, is a different matter and we will only find out how it fared under 120mph (190km/h) winds during 12 hours or more. I have lived through five hurricanes in my life (Charley, Ivan, Jeanne, Dennis, Wilma) but this one looks much worse.

The bottom line is this: I will be out of touch starting Thursday 11AM to at least Saturday and possibly for even longer (last time it took the authorities 6 days to restore power to our house). So, friends, which me luck, say a prayer for my family and house, and keep on using the blog which will be managed by Herb and Scott.

Signing off with a big hug to all,

The Saker

PS: on a lighter note, check out this outright creepy satellite picture of Matthew posted by the NHC: