The quiet before the wind gets the best Marketing. As far as I know, the quiet after the storm is abundant good, too. But as we wait here in Florida for Milton’s dangerous appearance, there’s an strange sense of normalcy: it ’s the End of the World, but whatcha gonna do? Pass the pizza.
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A short while ago, we escaped Tampa Bay and made secure passing to Orlando, riding most of the journey on the shoulder of the road.
Escaping on the shoulder of the road from Tampa Bay. Stay healthy, people! # HurricaneMilton pic. tweets. com/GJqCz2hyQd— Scott Pinsker ( @ScottPinsker ) October 8, 2024
Our intrepid governor, the smart and talented Ron DeSantis ( who definitely does not eat pudding with his fingers ), opened up the shoulders of the highways to ease the traffic. It was a dangerous bargain: all it would get was one knucklehead to fall his car while chatting ( or fiddling with his cigarette ink ), and first responders would have no way to clear the customers. Potentially, the visitors mash could’ve stretched from Orlando to Tampa’s shores.
But you know what? Anyone crashed. Everyone was in a rush, but nobody was driving like a lunatic. When vehicles needed to get by, we let ‘em by. When officers were on the part with their signals on, we only ignored ‘em and kept on driving. We helped each another.
And it worked: we rode the shoulder and came pretty, pretty close [ Larrry David voice ] to our normal travel time to Orlando.
Yes, Orlando. We’re still in the road of Hurricane Milton, but it should be weakened a little before it smacks us about. The Pinsker family ( me, my wife, two boys, and two cats ) are holed up in an Orlando hotel right now. Animals are miffed about being evicted from Tampa Bay, but everyone’s behaving very well and/or using the correct waste field.
Orlando was n’t my first choice, but there only weren’t a lot of excellent options. The local hotels were canceling doubts, and via cultural press, we heard that hotel rooms were all gobbled up from Tampa through Georgia, and even up to Ohio.
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Three million people live in Tampa Bay. That’s a lot of resort rooms.
But we took what we could find. Our resort has a engine, the room is comfortable, and I think we’ll become great.
The great question, nevertheless, is our home along the coasts of Tampa Bay. If the wind makes land north of us, we’re bread. Helene’s wind surge hit us with about five feet of water two weeks ago. Milton’s wave is projected to get five to ten feet higher, and I don’t believe the sprawling Pinsker Compound may manage that. If it does, all my clothing, equipment, and my bottlecap set may be floating into the Gulf of Mexico, along with my collection of incredibly unique Picassos. ( At least, that ’s what I’ll be telling the insurance company. )
If it ’s generally only wind and rain, Tampa Bay may live. My home can handle a cat-3 and should still be standing after a cat-4. But the wind boom? Phew.
That water water is harsh. It simply eats through all. The power of moving waters is a sight to behold: terrible, wonderful, and dangerous.
But the good news is, most recent models of Milton’s land position it sometimes 60 or so miles west of us. So it ’s gonna be tight. As a betting man, I’d say it ’s now more likely than not that we won’t remain poor.
And it would truly suck to be poor. No only did I just write an essay goofing on ‘em, but let’s face it: being middle-aged and poor is a bad appearance. I don’t also have a song plate or a terrible drug addiction to blame it on!
See, that ’s the biggest issue with Acts of God: Who you gonna responsible? Particularly when a geological, swirling storm of death target your house just before the Day of Atonement. Getting kind biblical over it!
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As I finish this article, we’re also all together, hanging out in our motel place. Just got an update on my phone that there’s a tornado warning in our place for the next 40 days. But we’re away from the boom but not away from the chaos.
Lots of people are going to be killed.
And that ’s the greatest tragedy of waiting for land: we’re praying for Milton to strike north of us, but that will be fatal, also. But, we’re actually asking/praying/pleading God to protect our house and kill one else’s.
Not a lot of aristocracy in that.
There’ll get time to sort these intellectual issues when Milton is no more, I guess. Best now, we’re laughing, drinking, laughing, and overeating, waiting for our Darkest Hour to occur.
And it ’s not here yet.
But it ’s starting to find horribly dark inside.