When Hurricane Charley hit Florida, my grandparents had to be evacuated to a shelter for the duration of the storm. During their time there, Grandpa suffered a fall, ended up in their retirement home’s hospital (more, more, more) after they returned from the shelter, and was just able to come home to Grandma on Friday.
Now, however, with Hurricane Frances bearing down on Florida, word has come that it’s highly likely that they will have to evacuate again.
Hello Everyone –
It is with a heavy heart that we are watching Hurricane Frances bear down on the East Coast of Florida.
We are in full preparation for another evacuation to our hurricane shelter. We feel that it is more prudent to be prepared and not need to evacuate than to be blindsided. I’m sure that each of you has been in contact with your Mom or Dad and have been given an update from them as well.
The last update from our meteorologist indicates that Frances will make landfall somewhere between West Palm Beach and Vero Beach after dusk Friday night. In Ft. Myers we can expect sustained winds between 40 and 70 mph from Friday night through Saturday. Due to the damage caused by Hurricane Charley twenty days ago we feel that to remain in King’s Crown for the duration would be risky.
Please rest assured that we will make sure that your parent’s safety and security is our utmost priority. We are asking that calls to our main number be limited so that we may focus all of our attention on hurricane preparation.
I also expect that we will be without phone service and e-mail capability for an undetermined amount of time before, during and sometime after the storm. Please be understanding if there are things that we were working on for your Mom or Dad that will need to be postponed until after the hurricane is passed.
Should we not need to evacuate I will send out a follow up e-mail to let you all know. Until then, please send us your prayers for our state as we brace for another round of bad weather!
Stacey Furbay, RN, BSHCL
King’s Crown
I was afraid something like this was going to happen as soon as I saw this graphic of the storm’s approach that BoingBoing linked to yesterday. According to their post, as of yesterday, conditions were “favorable” for the storm to become a Category 5 hurricane — the strongest on the scale.
As before, thoughts, prayers, and good mojo are always appreciated — and not just for my family, but for all the people and families in Florida who are going through this.
iTunes: “Aboriginal” by Pigface from the album A New High in Low (1997, 3:09).