Only 3 day until school starts...

Remember back to those days of yestayear!!! Labor Day weekend always meant the end of summer as we knew it then, the state fair and the last Tuesday of summer. I guess we always hoped summer vacation would last forever but we knew with the state fair and the Labor Day race on Monday it was just a matter of hours away. The great NY State stock car championship race with all that dirt in the air. The midway, sausage sandwiches, all the livestock and as suddenly as it appeared it was gone. Classes were about to start, football practice was underway and we were soon taking our "scenic tours" to close out practice. Anyone have any special memories of those days. Let me know and we will share them.

Day 4-5-6 TS Fay

Well it's over! Sorry I didn't get back sooner but I just had a few other things to do here that were not storm related. Thursday and Friday were wet and soggy days in Daytona. We had 4-6 inches of rain here but further inland they had probably close to 3 times that amount in the two days and very little wind damage as gusts were down to about 25-30 mph as Fay just stalled out every day and moved slightly under the cover of darkness. I went out Saturday about 7:00AM into a short duration rain and when it stopped the sun came out as it would on any other day and as I write this on Saturday afternoon, we have broken clouds and small areas of precipitation. The blue skies are a welcome sight as I have seen more neighbors today than in the past four days. Overall, Fay never did reach hurricane speed(+75 mph) but because it was so slow moving, it left more water and obviously more flooding than most hurricanes. The Melbourne area and up to the area east of Orlando had severe flooding and it will take months to recover for some. I guess that is it for the storm. Hope to hear from some of you with info to post soon. KR

Day 3-Tropical storm Fay

Wednesday started off with a fairly heavy but short duration rain after which it returned to what can best be described as a "good soaking rain". Throughout the day light rain fell with a few gusts of winds to about 30 mph, I believe. The afternoon gave way to a brighter day as the clouds dissipated some what before getting a medium gray again with the return of light rain. As darkness approached, the wind speeds picked up considerably as did the rain and we are finally expecting the tropical storm to pass by us as it moves north to St. Augustine and Jacksonville tomorrow. We should have rains throughout the night and winds a high as 60 mph but these are suppose to be just gusts. This has been a strange storm as it was stationery most of the day just north of the Cape about 50 miles south of Daytona. It followed the coastline most of the day as it moved along at 3-5 mph dumping close to 15 inches of rain in the Melbourne area. No weatherman/woman has been able to predict the path yet so we will have to wait and see what tomorrow actually brings. Right now we have steady rain falling and pretty good winds blowing.

Hurricane Fay-day 2

Not too much to report on our hurricane today. If you have been watching television reports, you have noticed it has again changed direction and is moving around the Melbourne area and then to the Cape. It is now expected to go out into the Atlantic Ocean but then turn left and go inland somewhere around St. Augustine, about 40 miles north. It could then roll across Florida and back into the Gulf and pick up more wind and rain as it does. We have had very little rain today, probably less than 1/2 inch but later this evening and into tomorrow if it stays on track, there will be 7-12 inches of rain possible in the Daytona area.

Hurricane Fay 8/2008

As Hurricane Fay approaches southern Florida, many residents are putting their hurricane panels in place on their homes. These are pictures of our house with the shutters in place. They are made of corrugated aluminum or lexan plastic. The lexan allows for light to enter during the daylight hours and is a strong plastic. It takes me about 45 minutes to put them all up and secure them with wing nuts along the bottom edge. This hurricane should not be too bad and the amount of rain will depend on how fast it moves through the area. As the weather forecasters all say, "Fay has the potential to spawn tornadoes as it passes through in the next 48 hours". I'll keep you posted as the days progress.

Dick plays his conch

Here is a followup to Dick Mills entry. He sent the wrong link to his picture. Thanks Dick.

I send the wrong link for the pic of me and the conch shell. It should behttp://picasaweb.google.com/dickandlibbymills/DickAndLibbySTarwathieCruisingLog/photo?authkey=b9kxJstyse4#5186130161988889394

here's pulling one out of the brain!!!

was playing golf today, and for some reason these names came back to me. anyone else remember the books about snipp, snapp and snurr? they are still published today.