Help is on the way to Tampa
 

Received this from my sister, who lives in Chattanooga.

Dozens of utility trucks are parked outside the Aloft Hotel at Hamilton Place Mall right now. I spoke to a few of the drivers. They all say they’re heading to the Tampa area in preparation for Hurricane Ian.

I had a good, long chat with one of the drivers. He told me it’s unclear how long they’ll be in Chattanooga. He says most of these utility trucks are from Pennsylvania and New York.
He says any minute, they could get a call to pack up and head down to Florida.

Coming home from Orlando this afternoon we saw at least 100 utility trucks heading south. Dozens of ambulances too.

Just drove in (0530) from Disney (which close parks 9/28&9/28) pockets of light rain, no gusts of winds. Very few cars for us, but heading into Orlando solid lanes of utility trucks, and cars.
On a up note passed more than 20 golf carts once we hit the bubble. Course’s are closed, restaurants, must be going to work at community watch

25,000 linemen ready................happens every time.

Not such a bonus for southern guys, but in the winter storms they come north to freezing cold:cold:

With 155 mph winds and expected to hit a more heavily populated area(and with above ground power lines) looks like a good idea. Was in Homestead after Andrew in 1992 and concrete block buildings were totaled and it was a fast moving storm.

I heard that Governor DeSantis has declared the entire state of Florida a disaster area and has mobilized the National Guard. I understand as well that TV has been moving water for well over a week now in preparation for this. Florida knows what to do so not too worried.

Back in Minnesota it was Old Man Winter: I remember being snowed in for days at a time before the plows could get out. Such storms were nearly always followed by subzero (in excess of -40 at night) for the next few days. Power might be down for days as well. But we knew what to do and were always prepared. Sort of like Florida and hurricanes.

This is standard whenever there's a hurricane. It's great to see the power companies from other states provide support.

We were 60 miles from the eyewall of Andrew when we lived in Davie, FL. Lucky for us, the only damage our community had was a few palm fronds on the ground.

A couple of hours ago (about 8:00 am I snapped a photo of the graphic from WESH 2 that shows future rainfall. It does not look good for The Villages. We have the highest future rainfall count in the area that encompasses Ocala in the north and Palm Bay on the east coast in the south. The graphic shows that by Friday at 9:00 pm, The Villages will have 26.2 inches of rainfall and Leesburg shows a future rainfall count of 23.8". I have no idea how this can happen but Ocala has only 6.1 inches of rainfall as future cast for the same time period.

Yikes!!! Can The Villages handle THAT much rain with their water management system? Now I'm concerned.

That's one model............others around 10 inches.

That one model was way off base.

My nephew called me today and he and 14 crew members from the Electric Co. from Wisconsin
are driving down here to help out.

They figure 2-3 weeks to be here of more if needed.