Helene Update

Thanks to EVERYONE who has sent us so many kind messages about the approach of Hurricane Helene. We’re out of the direct strike zone: the storm turned East and we’ll be spared the direct hit.

We will be getting 100+ knot winds tonight, trees will come down, and Tallahassee will be taking the hardest hit in decades.

We’ll be hunkered down in a safe room in the house. We have a generator and are well supplied with “food, fuel, and firearms” as they say. Renee spent the days before this storm prepping even before I got home from my endless road trip. She’s really good at it, and we were set to evacuate if the storm had stayed on track for a direct hit.

The kids and the granddaughter have evacuated to Nashville and are safe.

This is going to be very hard for folks across the Big Bend, particularly folks in Dixie, Levy, and Taylor counties. The devastation from Tampa to Mexico Beach will be beyond counting.

The storm should hit us in earnest in about two hours. We’re on the west side of the rotation — the so-called soft side — but in a Cat 4 there is no real soft side.

The Friday Brief — normally written in the early morning on Friday, was just completed tonight and it’ll pop at 6:30am for all subscribers.

Thanks to everyone for your prayers and good wishes.

We’ll see you on the other side.