Well....That Didn't Take Long

I realize, of course, that it is totally absurd to think that I have any effect on the weather...but holey moley...it sometimes seems that way to me.  

Here is why:

We moved to Florida in 1999 and according to locals it had been "years and years" since they had anything resembling a hurricane or tropical storm.

Then:

1999

 -September we had a mandatory evacuation for Hurricane Floyd 

-  Tropical Storm Harvey a couple weeks later

- Tropical Storm Irene in October

2000 was calm

2001 - Tropical Storm/Hurricane Gabrielle hit on September 13

2002 - Tropical Storm Edouard 

2003 - Tropical Storm Henri

2004 was a wonderful *sarcasm* year for hurricanes.  

- Charlie was in August...a category 4 that weakened to a 1 by the time it reached us.

-Frances was beginning of September...a category 4 hurricane and we took a direct hit.

-Jeanne was end of September...a category 1 hurricane

If you're keeping track that is 

-5 named hurricanes 

-4 Tropical storms

in 6 years.  

Then I moved to Wisconsin for 10 years (2005-2015) and over that period of time Florida experienced 2 tropical storms!  One in 2007 and one in 2013.  

That was copied and pasted from a post I wrote last year.

It only took one year of my living in Florida for a major hurricane to hit.  Hmmm...

My parent's live in the direct path and were under a mandatory evacuation.  They called me and invited us along for the adventure and even though Orlando was not expected to get the worst of it, we took the opportunity to get the heck out of Dodge.  

Last night we stayed at a Ramada Inn in Lake City but they did not have any rooms for this evening so we moved further west to Mariana, Florida.  

Following my dad

Motel in Mariana, Florida

Lunch

But they do not have vacancies for tomorrow night so we need to move again.  We have reservations for Friday and Saturday in Mobile, Alabama.  I'm not sure if Zack and I will go or will drive back to Orlando.  It will depend on where the severe weather is tomorrow. 

A common sight 

Evacuating is hard work

On a serious note though, we were involved in a very close call today on I10.  

Traffic came to an abrupt halt and, thankfully, whenever I have to slam on my breaks, I always look in my rear view mirror to make sure the person behind me is stopping.  He wasn't!  At all!  I screamed and in an instant I was able to determine there was no one in the right lane so I swerved over to the right lane and he had swerved off the road and onto the grass to avoid hitting me.  It was way too close for me.