Waiting for Godot

Hurricane Frances has been approaching for what seems like two weeks. Charley stomped through Florida with paratrooper boots. Wham, bam, thank you ma'am and he was gone. Frances has become fat, old, and slow. Even as I type, the eye is finally beginning to come across West Palm Beach. The newscasters don't mention the Town of Palm Beach, the ritzy glitzy kingdom on the barrier island, or the City of Lake Worth immediately to the south where I worked. These cities are going to get pounded for twelve hours of heavy wind that will peel off roofs and throw trees through roofs too tough to peel. In Lake Worth they've undoubtedly disassembled the pier. Their pier has heavy planks which aren't nailed down but can be removed from harm's way. They didn't remove the planks fast enough a few years ago. A storm carried them up to Palm Beach and their lifeguards retrieved some of them.

Meanwhile, we sit here in Clearwater and wait. We tried to go to a movie this afternoon but the film couldn't be delivered to the theater because of Frances. We got a little rain around 6 tonight but otherwise you'd have no clue what's about to happen by looking at the sky. After seeing Punta Gorda and Arcadia, the huge old oak trees in our neighborhood don't look so substantial any more. Now I'm trying to judge where they will fall if the eye passes us to the north. Tomorrow will be a long day.