So here's the latest track as of 9:00 p.m. Tuesday night. The path moved a little bit south now trending more towards landfall in the Sarasota area as opposed to a direct hit on Tampa. Better for storm surge in the Tampa Bay area, but putting the storm and its winds skirting right on the northern boundary of my county.
Also, and most concerning, according to the graphic above, at least as this station is telling it, Milton will be a Category 3 as it passes very nearby me.
Two years ago when Ian passed over, it was a Category 2 and, if memory serves, it started breaking up and quickly downgraded to a Category 1 well before it hit the east coast of Florida as it traversed across the peninsula.
I don't know man. I was thinking I could handle even up to a Category 2, but a Category 3? I don't know if my nerves could take it.
I've got to make some hard decisions tonight in preparation for what I'm going to do tomorrow.
I very much doubt I would go to a shelter. I'm not a shelter person. I'm not your huddled masses kind of guy.
To me the most logical route would be to pack up Hulk and head down 27. But I have a feeling a lot of other people are going to go that route too. And there are parts of 27 that literally cut through the middle of nowhere with nothing but swamp or sugar cane fields for miles and miles.
And then where do I go? Will there be any vacancies at hotels anywhere from Lake Placid to Okeechobee to Clewiston or would I be forced to go all the way to West Palm Beach?
Or would I just want to find a parking lot somewhere to hang out? I've got enough gas to sit and idle with my AC on, catching cat naps in my front seat through the night, as the milder tropical force winds southeast of the cone whisk around my aerodynamic little car.
And then when the storm passes, there's the task of getting back home. Remember those miles of swamp and sugar cane? Well the only tall things there are the power lines paralleling the road. What if they are downed? And those far stretching wide open areas start to become forests in southern Highlands County, miles before I get home. Thousands of trees that could be felled.
And so then I somehow make my way home. And it's bad. And I have no home. Then what do I do?
I sure could use an Ativan or two right now.