Hurrican Frances news

Some of us have gone thru this many times before. My first time was 1960 — Hurricane Donna- I remember sleeping on a blow-up beach mattress under someone's desk in the BellSouth building at the corner of Southard & Simonton Streets. At the last minute, it seemed, this deadly storm which was headed straight for Key West, turned in the middle of the night and hit Marathon. Quite a few people drowned from the storm surge. The keys were without power for weeks and under a boil-water order because the only water source — the pipe-line-- was ripped from the bridges in several areas . Key West had power thanks to City Electric System. Thank goodness NOAA & the National Hurrican Center are better able to predict where these storms are headed. This latest track puts landfall well north of us, about mid-state, around Daytona, etc, but the cone of error could slip it more south [the keys] or as far north as Jax. So stay tuned and keep informed. We all saw what a small change in direction did to the path of Charley! As it stands now, my family here in Key West is not planning to evacuate because the only areas to evacuate to are more likely to be in the danger zone than us! But that could change! At the very least everyone knows we're likely to lose power so we should all have on hand supplies needed in a power-outage situation: water, 1 gal for each person x seven days, battery operated radio & extra batteries, flashlights & extra batteries, lanterns, matches or other type lighters for gas stoves coleman stove & sterno, large ice-chest & lots of ice, canned foods and other foods not needing refrigeration, large and small trash bags paper towels, toilet paper, manual can opener. xxoo Ann