Planet Todd

It’s still overcast and rainy, but the sky is definitely clearing. People are headed back to the beach to play in the rough surf. Parts of Fort Lauderdale Beach are crowded as if it was the weekend. Parts of A1A is sand-blown, and the sand plows have been out moving it back onto the beach.

Meanwhile, Fay is still hanging around Florida, and in fact, is stronger now than at any other time previous. So, it’s churning in Central Florida right now, but it’s also dumping much needed rain on our state. The wind speeds have picked up and may even become a hurricane - it’s only 9 mph away from Category 1 status.

The late evening and overnight continued to bring us bands of gusty and rainy weather. The long, slow bands of weather spiraling off of Fay brought incredibly intense bursts of rain and wind. In our neighborhood, there doesn’t seem to be any major damage or even loss of electricity (which is a surprise because sneezing can cause an outage in my building). The surfers and kiteboarders were out in full effect yesterday with only one casualty. A strong burst of wind picked up a kiteboarder up off of the beach and smashed him into a building across the street. He’s in the hospital, but doing okay.

Today, we’re expecting more bands of bad weather, and we’re on warning for tornadoes and potential flooding. The atmosphere should start to clear up by this evening, but not before dumping some much needed rain on most of the peninsula an on Lake Okeechobee before heading up toward the panhandle and Georgia.

That’s about it for now. If anything else develops, I’ll update.

This is a photo taken out my back door during one of the rain bands that swept through the beach area. It was difficult to open the door and to keep the camera dry. The rain was flying by at a sideways angle.

Looking west across the Intracoastal

Looking east toward Fort Lauderdale Beach

Looking west across the Intracoastal

Looking north toward Sunrise Blvd.

Looking east (parking lot)

6:05 A.M.

It’s still quiet and dry here in Fort Lauderdale. However, the rain and wind is definitely headed our way. We are making last minute preparations around the house and getting ready for the predicted deluge. Work has been called off for me, but Jeff had to go in this morning.

10:02 A.M.

Not a lot going on yet. We’ve got some rain and a few rumblings of thunder. At the moment, it just looks a little gray and wet outside. It certainly doesn’t look ominous or frightening…yet.

11:30 A.M. Photo Update

NORTH

EAST

WEST

All is quiet and calm for now on Fort Lauderdale Beach. We’re watching the skies and the satellites to see if there is anything to worry about with Tropical Storm Fay. I’ve completed all of the basic preparations: topped-off the gas tank, stocked-up on canned goods, retrieved cash in case electricity/ATMs are down for any length of time, tested out the hurricane shutters, gathered all of the flashlights and lanterns and tested the batteries and took inventory of all of our bottled water. Better safe than sorry. With any luck, we won’t need any of this…but the preparation is good practice.