Eighteen gallons of drinking water sitting in jugs in the guest bathtub, all of the lanai furniture is stashed away, a supply of propane is on-hand, the vehicle tanks are full… We are prepared for the storm.
Considering that Iselle has failed to weaken as the earlier predictions forecast, it is now going to hit the island as a full hurricane. The cone of possible paths has narrowed to where there is no doubt, the eye of the storm will come right over the island.
I have never experienced the center of a hurricane, this will be new. Getting brushed by the outer edge of hurricane Howard while in Mexico a decade back is as close as I have been before. If the predictions hold we will see the eye go right over us. It will also be interesting to see what the interaction with two nearly 14,000ft mountains will do to the storm.
I am not expecting damaging winds on our side of the island. Perhaps a lot of rain? My worst fear is an extended power outage. There is a lot of Alaskan halibut in the freezer that would be painful to lose. I have filled the remaining space in the freezer with water bottles, now ice, to increase the thermal mass and the hold time without power.
I am on the minimal summit crew that will head up first thing tomorrow morning. We depart at the usual 7am and hope to be off the summit before noon. Certainly before the storm makes landfall later in the day. In any case tomorrow will be an interesting day.
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