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My home and office is in beautiful Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. We have been in the “cone of concern” since Fay was a wee depression in the Caribbean.

By the morning of Monday, August 18^th, it was certain that we would get a spanking. It was only a question of how much it was going to hurt. Still, most people around here didn’t seem to be too concerned.

I started making my preparations Monday morning. I divided my time between my appraisal work and getting ready for the storm. I went out to do property inspections and stopped to pick up bottled water. While on my way to take comp photos I stopped to fill up the car and fill up five 5-gallon gas cans for the generator. I already had plenty of flash lights, batteries, etc., accumulated over the last four or five hurricane seasons.

On Tuesday afternoon the forecast took an ugly turn. The storm was to head out over the Atlantic, strengthen into a Category 1 hurricane, and then turn west for a direct hit on us.

And for a while there, people got very concerned.

A run on the Ace Hardware store here in Ponte Vedra Beach made the local evening news. Some people actually fought over flashlights and batteries! Not fisticuffs, mind you, more like dirty looks and impolite language.

The end of the day Tuesday was actually very beautiful. High, wispy clouds colored orange and gray, a nice tropical breeze. I finished up a few last-minute items. I put away some flower pots and made sure the generator would crank up if I needed it later.

I got this generator last year. I also had a power transfer switch installed next to the panel box in the garage so I can run most of the electrical in the house from the generator. Even a Category 1 hurricane can cause major property damage and the power can be out for days or even weeks.

By sunset, it was time to go inside, get a shower, a glass of wine, hunker down, watch the Weather Channel, and wait for the storm to hit. Dr. Steve Lyons, the head hurricane honcho, had some good news. He said he didn’t think Fay would make it far enough out into the Atlantic to strengthen into a Cat 1. Whew! That was a big relief. Suddenly, instead of feeling anxious, I felt more like I was looking forward to enjoying a few days off.

Wednesday, Thursday, and today have been a mixture of some work on the computer, listening to the rain, doing some catch-up reading by flashlight, watching a couple of favorite movies, and watching the trees in the woods behind my house swaying in the wind. These past three days have been the most relaxing that I have had all year.