Preparing for Hurricane Matthew

Mike finally decided to trade in his Droid Bionic phone for a Samsung Galaxy 7 after doing some research on the Galaxy 7. So on the 3rd of this month, we went down to the Verizon store in Vero and traded in his old phone for the Samsung. As always with a new cell phone, there are differences from the old phone and Mike has been learning about the Galaxy's features.

We have spent this last week preparing for the arrival of Hurricane Matthew - buying bottled water, a few non-perishable groceries and filling the gas tank in the Outback and the gas cans we use for the generator. We didn't have too much outside stuff to put away, but I have a lot of potted plants that we moved inside of the garage. 

Mike and I grew up in Lake Worth, FL and we know what to expect with a hurricane. But this is Tinker's first hurricane and we'll see how he does. Fortunately he doesn't have any anxiety during thunderstorms - I guess as long as he has his best friend Bear, everything will be OK.

We have no shutters on our house and I moved everything that was breakable away from the windows - putting smaller items in dresser drawers and larger items in closets. Our house went through the 2005-06 hurricanes. We know there was roof damage, but according to Barb (our neighbor) she doesn't remember the previous owners having any windows damaged. I did go around the house taking photos of everything and I took photos outside of our house, trees and landscaping. 

Mike got Barb's and our generator ready with the extension cords, so they would be ready in case our power goes out. Barb always goes to stay with a friend in town during the storms, but Mike will be able to keep her refrigerator running if we lose power.

So now we just sit and wait for Matthew to arrive. We haven't had any rain today, but since about 4 p.m. the winds have been picking up. We've been getting winds averaging around 20-30 mph with wind gusts from 30 to almost 50 mph. We did have some rain about an hour ago, but it has stopped.

We still have power, but as the winds increase I'm not sure how much longer it will last.