Three Hurricanes and Counting

Saturday, August 27, 2005

Hurricane preparation is becoming old hat. After all, I've weathered the third one in less than a year. My section of Florida got hit by Francis and Jeanne in September 2004 and now Katrina just brushed us.

But if you want to know a Floridian's first question following a storm, it is: Did you lose power? We can bear the long, long gas lines, the grocery stores with no refrigerated items or fresh produce, but what sends us screaming the streets is the lack of power. Our war stories consist of how many days were we without power last year. In my case: 9 days and 20 hours with a heat index of 110.

Last year my kind neighbor ran a line to my refrigerator, and what saved my misery as I cleared debris from my yard was a precious box of popsicles in the freezer. To compound matters was the fact that the deadline for my book COURTING DANGER was looming. My solution was to float in my pool at night, typing on my AlphaSmart with a book light clipped to it. I made my deadline with 17 days to spare, but I couldn't bear the thought of being without power again.

Consequently, I bought a generator this year, which I have to drag out once a month to test run it, but I figured it would generate it's own Murphy's Law: since I had bought one, no more hurricanes. Ha! Here came Katrina out of nowhere.

Fortunately, we were hit by feeder bands and I didn't lose power...so maybe the Murphy's Law of generators did pertain after all.

Welcome to my blog. I'm author/attorney/Floridian Carol Stephenson. Don't expect daily entries as I've never been good at diaries or journals, but I'll try to visit on a fairly regular basis. Palm Beach County is a fascinating place plus I'm working on a new thriller so there should be plenty to talk about.

:) Carol Stephenson