Thursday, August 31, 2006

Hurricane Juan is about 10 Hours Away

The weather sites are saying Juan, now a hurricane I guess, will be here by late morning tomorrow. Thursday. They don't seem to know if it will stay out in the ocean or how close to land it will be when it passes over 22 degree N latitude, the latitude where Chacala is located.

My son arrived today and we are watching the internet reports that come on-line every three hours. From way south of PV to north of San Blas is on Hurricane Watch, meaning they expect a Hurricane here within twenty-four hours. And southern Baja too.

It's hard to know what to do. There is the house and stuff in it to protect, concerns about flooding along the north side of the house, which is already a problem, our personal possessions, household items. Etc. And should we stay at the house or take the taxi, car, bus or whatever somewhere. People are saying a hurricane has a radius of 60 miles, which covers alot of ground.

What to take if we only take the most important stuff, and what we can carry? What is it like if a hurricane winds come close to a house with lots of windows with screens and metal security grates? Does everything get tossed around in the house? Is it useless to put things in plastic bags? Does the refrigerator fly thru the air. In any case the power and phone lines will probably be down, because they are always going down.

And maybe all this is kind of a false alarm, and the storm will veer away from land. But apparently another hurricane called Krista is to the west of Juan, keeping Juan close to shore.

I will hate myself if I don't prepare enough and things get ruined or losy, or if I prepare too much for nothing, and have to un-do all the preparations. It's hard to sleep so I am just rambling on. My current thought is to close up the house as much as possible at dawn, take the stuff I really care about, and get out of here. My son kind of wants to stay and see it thru. I am ambivalent I guess. But by 6am we should know what's going to happen. And can decide then. If I could just relax and go to sleep.

3 comments:

chaintree said...

Good luck - I hope the hurricane stays out at sea. I'm heading over to México in 12 days' time. Now that I've read your post I think I'll stay inland!

Brenda Maas said...

Whatever you decided to do, take care of yourselves.
Best of luck.
Brenda

Anonymous said...

I'd say go inland...being from New Orleans the power of the hurricanes is still so fresh in my mind.My friends escaped with water up to their chins and just their car keys and credit card held over their heads to get out. That's all they had left. It's not worth the chance. Good luck. Linda