02 August, 2016

Updated 3 Aug 7:30 am - My Name is Earl

and I am a Tropical Storm hurricane-to-be with wind speeds approaching 60 sustained wind speed of 70 mph.

Looks like the center of Earl is still going to make landfall north of us on Wednesday night.  Chances are good that Earl will be a hurricane by then.  The best thing about Earl being north of us is that due to the counterclockwise rotation of the storm, the winds will be coming at us from the northwest, which is over land.  That means we shouldn't have a huge storm surge and that the wind speeds will be dampened a bit as the winds pass over land.

We decided to put up the hurricane shutters on all the upper level doors and windows and along the north sides of the verandas and part of the west side.  We got all that done today and are very pleased with the results.  Tomorrow morning we will put up the shutters on the exposed west side.  Depending on storm forecasts and projections, we may put all of the shutters up.  Hurricane shutters are up along the north, west, and south sides of the cabana.  We will probably put u the east-side shutters late this afternoon.  The latest map is at the bottom of this page.

Here is what Earl looks like at around 6:00pm, our time.

The little green dot is where we are.
We feel good about our preparations and need to see what tomorrow brings.  We will have to decide by 10:00 am if we want to evacuate.  Right now, evacuation is unlikely to be necessary, but things could change quickly.  I will try to post an update in the morning; it all depends on if we have internet signal.

Wednesday Morning Projection - We are located approximately where the lower edge of the white cone intersects the red hurricane warning line on the coast of Belize.

Will try to make a new post later in the day.

14 comments:

  1. Dear Wilma and Dennis, Our thoughts are there with you. Good luck with your last preparations. Sending you lots of calm, courage, love and hugs! Can't wait to get an update. BE SAFE! - Andrew and Pauliina

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    1. Thank you, Andrew and Pauliina. Still projected to make landfall to the north of Monkey River.

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  2. Thinking of you, please stay safe!

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    1. Appreciate it, Miss Cranky! Working hard on the staying safe part.

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  3. Smart to put up those shutters just in case! And I hope you get to say "Goodbye, Earl!" very quickly.

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    1. It is so calm right now - the fabled "calm before the storm". Hard to imagine what conditions will be like later today. More shutters going up now.

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  4. My goodness Wilma. I do hope you keep safe and don't get blown away.
    Where could you go to evacuate anyway. Best wishes.

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    1. Thanks, Roy. You got it in one - there is no good place to evacuate to when the storm is a little north of us. We are hunkering down, so to speak.

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  5. Wilma & Dennis. Well done on the preparations. Hope you and the property stay safe from the impending 'storm'.

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    1. Appreciate your thoughts, Frank. Just starting to rain lightly now.

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  6. Thinking of you all. You do seem to be as well prepared as it is possible to be.

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    1. We have tried to anticipate, but this will definitely be a learning experience for us. Thank you for your thoughts.

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  7. Just been reading about it on the BBC news pages. I hope you are managing to keep safe there. It looks to be more than a bit rough.

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    1. Earl went easy on us here in the southern-most section of Belize. I hear the central and north areas were much harder hit with lots of damage and flooding in Belize City. Thanks for thinking of us, John.

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