So here I am waiting for a hurricane.  It turns out that waiting for a hurricane is a lot like waiting for a baby.  You have a due date and certain expectations, but the baby always has other plans.  Right now the baby has missed his due date  and is staying in his cozy Caribbean home fattening up before his “arrival”.  Will this be a painless birth with a well functioning epidural or a drawn out and painful affair.  We do not yet know.

About a week ago there was a “Tropical Storm” way out in the ocean.  As a new year-round Floridian I did not yet realize what this “Tropical Storm” could turn into, so I barely paid attention.  Real Floridians drew my attention to the addictive game of “watching the storm”.  Everywhere I went there was the question,  “Do you think it will turn into something?”.   Umm I am pretty sure that it won’t turn into a toaster or anything so best not to worry.  Most people seemed to share my careless attitude on the subject.  Monday was my daughter’s first day of school and we were busy with all of the beginning of the year form-filling-out orientation-attending hullabaloo.  So I was rather surprised when Tuesday morning the collective attention of the great state of Florida turned eastward like fans at Wimbledon following a ball, and began to stare into the Caribbean.  The lowly Tropical Storm Dorian had ambitions above his station in life.  Not content with tropical storminess he aspired to be a Hurricane.

For months we have had a very good plan of action for our horses.  As all horse people know it is horses first, then everything else.  However, I had sort of supposed that we would not really need to implement this plan.  We are so fortunate to have the ability to take our horse to a facility rated for category 5 storms which can be safely enclosed, is elevated, and even has a generator.  Lucky horses! Maybe I can go too.  But no matter how well planned something is there is always the last minute struggle to HURRY UP, before commencing to wait.    When should the horses go?  What should we take with them? How many days will they stay and how many of those days will they be unaccessible to the outside world?  Should we pack enough supplies for two days or two weeks?  Fortunately, as equestrians, we go to horse shows so packing horses for trips of various lengths is sort of our thing.  I quickly had the essentials sorted and various plans for supplies based on the projected path and duration of the storm.

But here is the thing.  The projected path and duration is pretty much a complete mystery.  A week ago we thought this Caribbean interloper would remain a blustery tropical storm, by Tuesday the weather Gurus thought that he might “develop” into a Hurricane and make landfall, well somewhere (have you seen the spaghetti diagrams of these storms?).  Pretty much all of Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas made it into the cone of doom.  Some even thought that perhaps Dorian would swoop around the tip of Florida and pop out in the Gulf like some sort of tricky basketball player driving to the net around a slow to react defensive player.

While getting the horses ready was of course my first priority, I tried to get provisions for my family too.  The tv and radio said that we should get gas.  So we all got gas, all the Floridians, all at the same time.  Kate and I waited for 45 minutes in an angry mob to fill my truck with diesel.  Soon there was no gas left.  The tv said to get water and enough food to last for a week.  We all went to Publix, again all the Floridians all at the same time.  Everyone was much more sedate at the grocery store.  I bought two cases of water, some snacks, and chocolate.  Everyone else seemed to be doing the same thing.  I got to the checkout and went back for more chocolate, you never know.  I tweaked my back moving patio furniture inside and called the home front prepared.

By Friday the projections were dire.  We were going to take a direct hit by a big Cat 4 storm.  I packed more supplies for the horses and had everything ready to take them to their “safe house”.   Then Dorian decided to slow down and fatten up a bit more.  He crept along towards the Bahamas gorging himself on warm tropical waters.  The gurus, for reasons unclear to me, decided that he was going to make a northern turn.  On Saturday,  were released from the cone of doom and told to just expect a bit of wind and rain.  Dorian was going to drift up the coast into the Atlantic and give his Florida vacation plans a pass.  And then I woke up today to find myself back in the cone of Doom with a super morbidly obese Cat 5 Dorian lumbering right at me.

 

Today we spent the entire day moving the horses and putting everything away that wasn’t nailed down.  I left the horses out all morning while we packed up brush boxes, bathing supplies, cross ties, and tack trunks.  Fortunately we have a fabulous team and we all worked together to get it done.  The Havensafe farm manager Christy has been incredible, helping us prepare and making plans to keep the farm and our horses safe.  About mid day we loaded the horses up and took them to their “Hurricane Camp” which is truly more of a five star resort for horses.  The barn will be full of horses weathering the storm.  They will be cared for by a High Performance groom, Carly.  A vet tech is staying on site as well which is a big comfort.  

 

My horses will being enjoying the storm with the aid of a little cocktail now and then.  Whatever it takes to make them feel comfortable when the wind starts blowing and the rain starts lashing.  I have a nice bottle of wine that I have been saving, and of course all of the chocolate that I bought.  I convinced Kate that the storm would be fun because we would spend the whole day, or two, together at home watching movies.  I hope that our supply of downloaded kid movies and back up battery charges hold up even if the power and internet do not.  Most of all I hope that we are all safe.