Damage severe to catatrophic...let's hope all our Florida friends are okay.

Thanks, Whit--I and mine are fine except youngest daughter's
house caught light damage and they're without electricity for a while. But just a few miles away, what de-
struction we're hearing about!

Here in Sarasota we were fortunate. It was a tense few hours on Friday, with the forecast changing every few minutes. My wife and I headed a few miles east to our daughter's house to escape the possibility of a storm surge. Our son-in-law, who is in law enforcement, was on duty all night, finally coming home early in the afternoon. Every few minutes he would get a phone call from a friend who was monitoring the local radar. First we would hear that it was headed straight for us, then a wobble would bring better news, then again it would look as if we were in for the worst. Finally we experienced nothing worse than some brief heavy rain with moderate winds, normal for this time of year. The irony, of course, is that if we had ventured a few miles further east, as recommended by local officials, we would have felt the fury of the eye passing over.

Right now we have friends from Punta Gorda staying with us. Their house, only a year old, lost its back porch and parts of the roof. They actually felt the eye of the storm, with their ears popping as the pressure changed rapidly. Looking at the bright side, we have reliable house guests who will look after our property and our beloved cat as we leave on Friday for our long-awaited three-week trip to New Zealand--that is, unless Hurricane Earl intervenes. Am I getting paranoid? Yes. It's a strange feeling to leave your cozy home, wondering if you will ever see it again. We lucked out this time, but I'll no longer take routine safety for granted.

>we have reliable house guests who will look after our property and our beloved cat as we leave on Friday for our long-awaited three-week trip to New Zealand-


Glad to hear you're OK, slithy. The weather here has not been particularly well-suited to gyreing or gimbling either. The South Island just got lashed by a snowstorm, and a tornado killed a couple of people on the North Island's West Coast. If you're after sunny weather (and good wine) while you're here, be sure to visit Hawke's Bay.

Thanks for the tip, Max. Hawke's Bay sounds like just what we're after. A bit of late winter will be welcome.

And just to verify that this is indeed a word-oriented site, I give you the catchphrase that seems to have captured the local imagination of late, which is hunker down.