Watching a hurricane advance in your general direction is a bit like having a bit part in a real-life monster movie. There was panic buying at the local grocery store yesterday. Water, paper plates, plasticware, canned staples were gone or flying off the shelves.
The latest bulletin from UM says,
The University continues to carefully monitor the progress of Hurricane Frances. UM's Crisis Decision Team met at 10:30 a.m. today and determined that the University expects to be open for the remainder of the week. We will conduct business as usual, and all classes, events, and clinical activities remain on a regular schedule. The Crisis Decision Team expects to meet daily this week, and you will be advised immediately if there are any changes to schedules.
Some precautionary measures are being undertaken today and tomorrow, including installing hurricane shutters on certain buildings on the Coral Gables campus. This is standard procedure and is no cause for alarm.
Well, actually, there might be cause for mild alarm, as this looks like a nasty one. On the other hand, it's still far away, has plenty of time to turn north, and indeed, the lastest forecast track is no longer aiming dead at us, although landfall remains a very very inexact science and we here in Miami are still within the cone of probability.
If it hits, though, it's unlikely to do so before early Saturday. Now if we could just find some plastic forks….
I think the spork would be better survival gear…
When I was a kid the great state of Queensland (which weirdly also calls itself the Sunshine State) was putting out cyclone bulletins on radio that used the same siren as in Japanese monster movies. You’d get this siren blaring on radio every 15 minutes followed by something like: ‘Cyclone Godzilla is expected to come ashore 200 kilometres north of Maryborough i the next 12 hours.’