Hurricane Irma Disrupts Regularly Scheduled Programming

Ian F wrote:

JG can live feed his hurricane prep with his iPhone like the first few episodes. 

Stay safe guys!

You know that actually sounds kind of interesting. Let me see how far I get on prep on Friday and maybe I'll go live for a while and show you how we do it Florida style.

And before you judge me for staying, we have some mitigating circumstances that prevent our departure. Wife's mom is in Senior Managed Care dealing with the mid-stage effects of Alzheimer's. They tend to not evacuate people like that because they're WAAAAY safer to shelter in a suitable location (reinforced senior car center with medical-trained attendants and several days of backup food and water for each guest). Dana might actually go over there to help during the worse of the storm and I'll ride it out at the house.

We also have the Parrots. Evacuating with five parrots is not exactly easy, and any place we'd go there's every chance they could be at more risk than just staying home in their concrete house.

The key is prep. If you're going to stay, you need to plan on being self-sufficient for EVERYTHING for at least a few days. Anything less and you're a drain on the already fragile infrastructure recovery. And if you do leave: stay the hell away. Coming back wile recon crews are still assessing and triaging infrastructure repair just gets in their way.

The car Tetris has begun.

Best wishes, don't try to be heros.

Good luck, fingers crossed for you guys!

Get out while you can still drive out.  We can argue amongst ourselves on autopilot until your safe return.

Car tetris - BTDT.  Fun times stuffing all 4 of the ex's cars into her 2.5 car garage.  She has since done some reorganizing and could probably stuff 5 inside now with dollies.

It would be cool to see a live feed JG, if you can do it safely. 

The really scary part is Jose is apparently not far behind Irma.  Hopefully it will take a different path and/or be less powerful.

Thoughts and prayers for you all.

I have a Brother here in North Georgia But the rest Live in Key West,  I called A Nephew and said I know you won't leave But Get My Sister OUT ! They just Laffed and said they will be OK.     Dummies.   There house is about 14 feet above Sea level the waves are Already at 20 In front of the Eye. the whole Island is only 2x4 Miles wide, Dummies.

Hope you guys all stay safe, and Florida doesn't suffer too much damage!

Stay safe guys. 

I know I'm not going on my honeymoon to Saint Martin in a month now. 

Stay safe everyone. 

Andy we used to spend time in Jamaica and it was beautiful,  Ive heard tho it's become Dangerous so that makes me not want to recomend it.

If any of the GRM family in Irma's path needs to evacuate, we have plenty of space, if you can make the trek to central Illinois. It's very thoroughly "lived in" but it's clean and comfy.

I know traffic is a mess and fuel shortages are already a problem, but if you can make it here, you're welcome to crash as long as necessary. 

Thanks for all of the wishes and offers. So far it sounds like everyone here on staff has a plan--more or less. Fortunately the projected path has been consistently pushed westward--good for us, bad for our friends on the other side of Florida. We're watching it closely. 

Personally we're packed, the house is ready, and the car is ready to go. If need be, we can make a break for my parents' house in South Carolina. Most of our drive to them is non-highway, so we're not too worried. Twenty-four hours ago, we were set to head there. Now, we're not sure. In fact, some friends from Tampa might head here. Once the storm turns, we'll know more. 

Earlier today JG did a GRM Live! about the storm. Here's the embed:

https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Ffacebook%2Fvideos%2F10155744237913140%2F&width=500&show_text=false&height=281

Thanks again, everyone, and be careful. 

And lots of good hurricane info over at https://www.facebook.com/mikesweatherpage.

The latest forecast puts the storm another tick to the west. That's good for GRM but not good for friends and family in Tampa. We might have friends from there heading this way soon. This storm doesn't sound good for the Keys, either. 

"...is the peninsula at the bottom of the US, where everybody does crystal meth..."

Yep, sounds about right.

Good morning. Just listening to Mike's Weather Page right now: https://www.facebook.com/mikesweatherpage

The big question: Will the storm make landfall in Naples or Tampa? We're doing laundry, making magazines and doing stuff in preparation for losing power. Even though the storm is on the other side of the state, we're still going to feel it. We have Waffle Houses at the exits both directly north and south of us. 

Yep, latest track is looking better for GRM but worse for friends and family on the west coast. We're more or less ready to go, and expecting a week or so without power. 

Time for a shameless plug, btw. After the 2004 hurricane season, our friends at Honda mailed us a few generators as a get-well-soon present. One of them is still trucking along like a champ, and sitting in my garage ready to power my fridge, wifi, and lights for the next day or week or whatever it ends up being. This will be its 12th hurricane season if I'm counting correctly.

Thanks, Honda. 

Seems that where ever you are in Fla. you are going to be slammed.  The storm covers the whole peninsula regardless of where the center goes.

Good luck to those who stayed.

In reply to David S. Wallens :

In addition to making magazines may I also suggest that you make sure you have a few spare magazines loaded. 

Glad the storm won't be hitting you guys as hard as it looked a few days ago.

(Quotes not working for me on my desktop.  They have been working fine on my laptop...)

RE: Honda Generator

Those things are awesome.  They should be mandatory on food trucks.  I love the food truck festivals, but I can't believe how many are using poorly running, smoke belching, loud, obnoxious generators, when those quiet units are so much better to be around.  Especially if you have to talk over it when taking orders.

Don't let a little hurricane stop you guys from mailing the shirt and stickers i ordered.  

J/k stay safe

I just zoomed in on the storm's projected path through Tampa. The path currently passes two blocks east of our Challenge car. (And, more importantly, my friend's house.)

Hows it looking in Gainesville?