Ernesto Was Confused to the End

Like I said before Ernesto just never seemed to be able to make up his mind what he wanted to be. It's gone further. Whatever caused his wishy-washy behavior transferred to the news department of Belize's Channel 7 with this story:

Mr. Editor... We Have A Problem

Here's a bit more detail:

HURRICANE ERNESTO SPARES MEXICO, SLAMS BELIZE

Hurricane Ernesto has spared Belize - the category one storm is expected
to make landfall at Mahahual on the Southeastern Coast of Mexico - about
43 miles northeast of Chetumal in the next few hours with winds of 85
miles per hour.

Only mi...

(http://www.7newsbelize.com/sstory.php?nid=23127)

I don't know... Another Dewey beats Truman episode, I guess.

Anyway, the storm, such as it was, whatever it was, has come and gone. For us, it was a great opportunity to try out our pool house as our hurricane shelter. It passed with flying colors. There were only a couple minor problems - both taken care of with a mop.

The first one, our bathroom outside door definitely needs some weather stripping around it. We knew that going in. Heck, you can see daylight all around the door. We haven't looked at it as a problem before. The bathroom floor gets wet every time we have the pool in use.

The second one, our two little A/C units that are mounted in the wall in each bedroom, allow water to drip in - but only if the wind is really howling and with a good rainfall. I think I'll be able to solve that problem too. Not sure just yet how. Some sort of covering we put up at the same time as the window plywood.

Speaking of the plywood, that all worked like a charm for both houses. The pool house especially, since that was where we were camped out, along with the three doggies and April.

In short, other than the leakage problem, the pool house worked great. We found out that, even with no current and consequently, no ceiling fans, and with the windows secured fairly tightly with the plywood, we were still able to get fresh air circulation in the place, simply by opening the sliding glass doors which are behind the big roll-down door. Definitely need candles or lanterns inside when everything is buttoned up. It's dark, dark, dark in there without them.

We thought we had a problem yesterday morning after the storm. I was going to make coffee and our coffee maker, being electric, of course was out of commission, we thought.

We boiled some water on the stove and thought we'd have to hold the grounds basket down to keep the spring for the coffee cheater thing (that stops the coffee flow when you remove the pot) in place. It was nice to find out that the weight of the water in the basket allowed it to function in its normal way. So we had coffee. I'll tell you, those kitchen engineers think of everything, don't they?

The two downsides to the pool house are - no TV and no Internet. 'Course, when we're without current, it's moot issue. Thankfully, Dianna has a Kindle Fire, which she loves, and I have an iPod which I love as well. We both spent hours reading. What luxury! I actually enjoy reading on my iPod. The smallness really is no hindrance whatsoever. And, bonus. I found out I can recharge the iPod off of the battery in my laptop when we have no current. Read on!

So, let's see... What else? We sustained no damage to any structures or even plants. Rainfall for Ernesto came out, according to the Winjama Weather Station, to be about 2.4 inches for yesterday - at one point, the rain was coming down at an hourly rate of 12.14 inches, impressive if it had continued for very long. There is a lot of standing water all over the area. Mosquitoes are going to love it for a while - as do the frogs. For some reason, my rain gauge is working again.

Our highest winds were 45 knots on Tuesday, the day Ernesto arrived, no big deal there either. We lost current (electricity for you folks up north) somewhere around 8:30 to 9:00 PM on Tuesday. It didn't return till about 10:00 AM on Wednesday. We lost it for several more periods after that, but only for a few minutes at a time.

All in all, a nice practice for the main event. I'd be happy if this is all we get for the season - at least till I get the leaks fixed.

It's Gonna Be A Hurricane... No, Wait A Tropical Storm.. No, Wait...

Hunker in the Bunker. No, wait. You can relax. No, better hunker...

Ernesto - Now He Wants To Be A Hurricane

Thanks to the National Hurricane Center for the image above, and for the good work they do. I get obsessed this time of year - looking at every message and map that they produce. I'm so glad they look our for our area too. I really appreciate it. But, I'm digressing, aren't I?

I'm beginning to think Ernesto doesn't know what he wants to be when he grows up. Or maybe he just has ADD (apparently, he's not the only one).

Lack of focus on the task at hand. "Hey! Ernesto. Pay attention here. There's people watching you."

You're out there just playing in the warm Caribbean waters, listening to some fine Reggae - especially since you're passing Jamaica. But, you gotta concentrate, man. One thing or the other. You can't just let things wander all over the place. Next thing you know, people'll start thinkin' you drool some too. That can't be good.

You want them to think you're sharp, don'tcha? Sure you do. Focus, focus, focus.

We dutifully took down our awning fabric. Now, within an hour of taking the awning down, the pool temperature zoomed up to 91 (f). We were just about ready to bring stuff down to the pool house, which is serving as our hurricane bunker, when I checked the latest charts. Nope. It's back to a storm, so we can sort of relax (not forgetting the shellacking Arthur gave us a couple of years ago).

I get up this morning, check things out. Whoops, we're back to being hit by a hurricane. So, my schedule for today, now, is to put up the plywood over the louvers, move the important stuff down to the pool house, make sure everything loose is nailed down, put away, or some how gotten rid of, just so we have fewer opportunities for wayward missiles and such. This includes chopping the coconuts off the trees. You just don't need these cannonballs flying around if you don't have to.

I don't think from the map, that Ernesto's going to make much of a hurricane, but still, a hurricane's a hurricane. Know what I'm saying? Sustained winds of 74 to 110 miles-per-hour and higher gusts. Yeh, cannonballs and scrap wood and other crap that wasn't nailed down. Who needs it?

I think I may roll the dice and not take down the weather station. I'm curious to see what the actual wind speeds will be, so I'll tempt fate with that. Satellite dishes? Hmmm. I'll wait and see till later today.

In the meantime, I've got more than enough stuff to do to keep myself busy and focused.

Ernesto - Whazzup?

Make up your mind will ya? The computer models (http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/tracking/at201205_model.html) show you possibly going south of us or possibly north of us... What that makes me think of, is that you're planning to go right over the top of us. Which is it?

North of us is probably the best for us. South probably means more wind and heavy rains. Right over us kind of speaks for itself.

Dr. Jeff Masters, who started the Weather Underground, in his daily weather blog (http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/article.html), says "Ernesto's survival into today means that the storm now potentially poses a formidable threat to the Western Caribbean."That's enough to cause some real pucker-power, if you know what I mean

I'm thinking right now that Sunday is probably going to be a busy day for us here at Casa Winjama. I'm guessing we'll be taking down the swimming pool awning, among other things, and doing all the other preparedness things we've mentioned in our Hurricane Preparedness Checklist (http://winjama.blogspot.com/2010/05/dust-off-plan.html). This page, with the link to the checklist, also has links to several other worthwhile hurricane-related sites.

For those of us living in Belize, LOVE-FM (http://www.lovefm.com/) is the radio station du jour during events like this. Their frequencies range from 88.9, (94.7 in Corozal - thanks to Alan), 95.1, to 98.1 (MHz) - just like it says in one of their on-air jingles. They do a surprisingly good job of letting you know what is happening throughout the country. Plus, they have a generator, so they're likely to stay on the air in the event of power disruptions.

I forgot to add a thing here...

The chart shown below in color is the one everybody looks at. It's good for providing some information about possible and projected tracks for storms, but it doesn't give a real good feeling for the possible areas that will be affected by high winds and heavy rains. In that regard, it can be misleading.

Tracking Cone

Here's a graphic showing the same storm, Ernesto of course. As you can see by the larger shaded area, the danger zone is quite a bit larger. It's always worthwhile to keep that in mind as you prepare. Thanks to the National Hurricane Center for producing the images.

Mariner's 1-2-3 Rule

 For a fairly understandable definition of the 'Mariner's 1-2-3 rule,' see Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_cyclone_forecasting)

In the meantime, I'm staying glued to the laptop and will be checking the reports and track forecasts for Ernesto pretty religiously throughout the next few days.

As my friend Charles always says, "Stay safe."

Cheers